News - AllGov860505http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/omar-al-bashir-worlds-worst-dictator-overthrown-at-last?news=860505U.S. and the WorldOmar al-Bashir, World’s Worst Dictator, Overthrown at Last<p>
Back in 2006, I wrote a book called <em>Tyrants: The World&rsquo;s 20 Worst Living Dictators</em>. I gave the dubious honor of first place to Omar al-Bashir of Sudan. Now, 13 years later, Bashir has finally been overthrown. Unfortunately, the man who led the military coup that overthrew Bashir is General Awad ibn Ouf, who, since 2006, has been financially sanctioned by the U.S. government for his role in the genocidal attacks carried out in the Darfur region of Sudan.</p>
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Still, it is worth reviewing the history of Sudan and how Bashir came to power. So, I am publishing here the original chapter I wrote about Omar al-Bashir. Some things have changed, most notably the creation of the independent nation of South Sudan in 2011. However, sad to say, most of the article is still relevant. Readers with little interest in background history might want to scroll directly to the section &ldquo;The Man.&rdquo;</p>
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OMAR AL-BASHIR&mdash;Sudan</h1>
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<strong>THE NATION</strong>&mdash;Sudan, by size, is the largest nation in Africa and the tenth largest nation in the world.&nbsp; It shares borders with nine different nations; only China, Russia and Brazil have more neighbors than Sudan.&nbsp; Since achieving independence in 1956, the nation has experienced only ten years of peace.&nbsp; The rest of the time it has been plagued by a series of overlapping civil wars.&nbsp; Since 1983, an estimated two million Sudanese have died of war-related causes, while five million have been forced from their homes.&nbsp; Since 1993, Sudan has been the world&rsquo;s leading debtor to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.&nbsp; Sudan&rsquo;s population of about 38 million is deeply divided ethnically and religiously.&nbsp; Although 52% of the population is black, the nation has always been ruled by the minority who are Arabs.&nbsp; Seventy percent of Sudanese are Sunni Muslims, 25% follow traditional religions and 5% are Christians, mostly Catholic.&nbsp; A census taken at the time of independence identified 50 ethnic groups, 570 distinct peoples and the use of 114 languages, although more than half the population speaks Arabic.</p>
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<strong>SLAVERY</strong>&mdash;In recent years, the media has devoted a good deal of attention to the killings in Darfur in western Sudan.&nbsp; One of the most disturbing aspects of this tragedy is that the exploitation of black people by Arabs in the Sudan has been going on for more than 1,400 years.&nbsp; The word &ldquo;Sudani&rdquo; in Arabic means &ldquo;black.&rdquo;&nbsp; This term, along with the words &ldquo;Nuba&rdquo; and Nubia,&rdquo; which relate to one of the areas in southern Sudan populated by black Africans, have all entered colloquial Arabic with the meaning of &ldquo;slave.&rdquo;</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Christian missionaries arrived in the region in the 6th century and Islamic missionaries in the 7th century.&nbsp; As early as 652, a treaty was signed in which Muslim Egypt would provide goods to Christian Nubia in exchange for Nubian slaves.&nbsp; Slave raids in southern Sudan continued almost without a break for the next 1,300 years, no matter who ruled the region: Egyptians, Turks or local sultans.&nbsp; Muhammad Ali, the Albanian-born ruler of Egypt, invaded Sudan in 1821, leading to sixty years of Turco-Egyptian rule.&nbsp; During this period, which saw the introduction of domestic slavery and the development of slave soldiers, an average of 30,000 southerners a year were seized in slave raids.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Muhammad Ali also founded the city of Khartoum at the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile.&nbsp; In 1885, the forces of Mohammad Ahmed al-Mahdi (the Messiah) captured Khartoum and overthrew the Turco-Egyptian regime.&nbsp; Al-Mahdi died the same year and was replaced by Khalifa Abdullahi.&nbsp; The Mahdists expanded the practice of slavery, driving millions from their homes.&nbsp; They also set an unfortunate precedent by demanding that citizens take a personal, religious oath of loyalty to the Mahdi and the Khalifa and condemning non-followers, even fellow Muslims, as &ldquo;unbelievers.&rdquo;&nbsp; When British and Egyptian troops invaded Sudan, these rejected Muslims were glad to help overthrow the Mahdists.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Anglo-Egyptian forces, led by General Horatio Herbert Kitchener, defeated the Mahdist army at the Battle of Omdurman on September 2, 1898, and the Sudan became a possession of the King of England.&nbsp; The British abolished slavery, outraging the Arabs in northern Sudan who considered the practice not a question of human rights, but a cultural tradition that was being disrupted by foreign invaders.&nbsp; The British also halted the spread of Islam to new areas and assigned separate zones to Catholic and Protestant missionaries, most of whom arrived from Austria, Italy and the United States.&nbsp; The Americans distinguished themselves by their unusual obsession with clothing the natives.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Mahdists had never established control over southern Sudan, and it took the British a long time to deal with it themselves.&nbsp; As part of their pacification campaign, the British-led army occasionally burned down villages in the south, just as the Egyptians and Mahdists had done, and they were even known to seize cattle just to prove they had the power to do so.&nbsp; In 1930, the British declared a Southern Policy that stated that the region was African rather than Arab, but because there were few hereditary rulers in the south, it remained difficult for the British to establish consistent authority.&nbsp; In the north, meanwhile, tensions developed between the British and their junior partners, the Egyptians.&nbsp; In the 1920s, the British expelled Egyptian soldiers and administrators and, to counter the growing influence of Egypt in Sudan, they brought back the posthumously-born son of the anti-Egyptian Mahdi.&nbsp; The grand <em>qadi</em> (judge) of the religious courts was always an Egyptian, but the British ended this monopoly in 1947.&nbsp; After World War II, the British came up with a novel tactic for stemming the threat of Egyptian power in Sudan:&nbsp; they proposed that the Sudan be granted independence, even though few Sudanese themselves had demanded it.&nbsp; When formal negotiations for independence began in 1952, Egypt was included, but the black Sudanese in the south were not.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Sudan&rsquo;s first election, held in 1953, was generally fair, although women were not allowed to vote.&nbsp; (Women&rsquo;s suffrage finally occurred in1967.)&nbsp; The National Unionist Party, which advocated political union with Egypt, emerged as the largest single party, but they failed to gain a majority of the votes, and a coalition of anti-unionist parties turned union into a dead issue.&nbsp; The new, pre-independence government also showed no interest in sharing power with the black Sudanese and appointed northerners to all leadership positions in the south.&nbsp; This continuation of the Arab view that the southern tribes were not fit to be partners led to a shocking incident in the summer of 1955.&nbsp; When the northern government ordered southern soldiers in the state of Equatoria to transfer north, they refused. In what became known as the Torit Mutiny, the soldiers went on a rampage against the administrators from the north, killing 450 people, including women and children.&nbsp; The northern authorities were outraged, but not enough to ask themselves what could be done to mitigate southern anger.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Great Britain practically forced Sudan to declare independence on January 1, 1956, before a constitution had been written and before the achievement of anything that could be even remotely considered a national consensus.&nbsp; The southern Sudanese were understandably wary of the northerners&rsquo; intentions towards them.&nbsp; Southern leaders pushed for a federal system that would allow them some regional control, but the northerners took the position that giving the south any power at all would lead eventually to secession or that it would, at the very least, threaten the master-servant relationship that they considered part of their &ldquo;traditional culture.&rdquo;</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Less than two months after independence, an incident took place that would serve as an awful harbinger of the violence that has cursed Sudan ever since.&nbsp; Police in Kosti locked 281 striking tenant farmers in a room.&nbsp; By morning, 192 of them were dead.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The first post-independence election, in 1958, exposed Sudan&rsquo;s deep divisions, as the ruling alliance fractured, and the southerners established their own party.&nbsp; A</p>
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nationwide strike, led by labor unions, the tenant farmers&rsquo; union, students and the Communist Party, brought the country to a standstill.&nbsp; On November 17, 1958, the military, led by General Ibrahim Abbud, seized power and declared a state of emergency.&nbsp; This came as a relief to both the Western powers and the USSR, who found a democratic Sudan difficult to deal with.&nbsp; The new government set out to Arabize and Islamicize the south, using Arab traders and Muslim missionaries as a vanguard and then sending in the army to burn villages and to arrest and torture civilians.&nbsp; They also ordered that the day of Sabbath be changed from Sunday to Friday.</p>
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<strong>THE FIRST CIVIL WAR</strong>&mdash;In 1962, southern Sudanese living in exile, including students and ex-mutineers, formed the Sudan African Nationalist Union (SANU), which eventually included a guerrilla wing known as Anyanya, which is a type of poison.&nbsp; SANU appealed to the West for support, but the Europeans and Americans were not interested.&nbsp; SANU also received little help from fellow Africans because the Organization of African Unity had pledged to retain all colonial boundaries and SANU&rsquo;S call for &ldquo;self-determination&rdquo; was judged counter to this pledge.&nbsp; Anyanya managed to acquire weapons by hijacking Sudanese government convoys that were transporting arms to pro-Arab rebels in the Congo.&nbsp; Fighting between the southern rebel forces and Sudanese government forces began slowly.&nbsp; The first major rebel attacks started in September 1963.&nbsp; Both sides were ruthless in their tactics.&nbsp; However, along the way, Anyanya discovered the Maoist strategy that guerrillas can survive by befriending the locals and becoming &ldquo;fish in a sea of people.&rdquo;</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Meanwhile, back in Khartoum, things were not going well for Gen. Abboud, who was not the most competent of leaders.&nbsp; Student protests, street demonstrations and a general strike finally led to a popular uprising that overthrew Abboud in October 1964.&nbsp; A transitional government was formed by Communists and unions of tenants, workers and farmers, which allowed women to obtain some political rights.&nbsp; Six months later, an election was held, but only in the north.&nbsp; The newly-elected government made clear their intentions in the south by approving the first large-scale massacres of civilians.&nbsp; When war broke out between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Sudan supported the Arabs, broke relations with the United States and turned to the Soviet Union, which led to a drastic decline in foreign aid.&nbsp; As the war in the south grew to eat up one-third of the national budget, Sudan&rsquo;s foreign debt doubled between 1964 and 1969, putting great pressure on the northern poor.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Another election was held in 1968, but few in the south were able to vote.&nbsp; By this time, the rebel movement had grown large enough to develop bickering factions.&nbsp; They did find it easier to acquire weapons and training because enemies of the Sudanese government, such as Israel, Ethiopia and Uganda, were happy to supply the rebels.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In March 1972, the government and the rebels signed a settlement, the Addis Ababa Agreement, that ended the civil war.&nbsp; This was the first negotiated settlement in post-colonial Africa, but eventually the southerners would come to regret it and consider it a failure.&nbsp; The agreement provided for the gradual absorption of the Anyanya guerrillas into the national army, but northern troops did not leave the south and many guerrillas chose to go into exile in Ethiopia.&nbsp; Economically and politically, the promises of the Addis Ababa Agreement would turn out to be illusory.</p>
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<strong>NIMEIRI AND THE INTERLUDE OF PEACE</strong>&mdash;On May 24, 1969, Colonel Jaafar Nimeiri overthrew the elected government of Sudan by bringing together the military and the Communist and Socialist parties.&nbsp; Nimeiri would prove to be a completely self-serving politician who would make or break an alliance with any group, so long as it helped him stay in power.&nbsp; For example, by 1970 he had booted out of office all of the Communist ministers who had helped him with his coup d&rsquo;&eacute;tat.&nbsp; Nimeiri civilianized himself by staging a phony election in September 1971 in which he won 99% of the votes.&nbsp; Not surprisingly, the traditional political parties turned against him, so he countered their potential strength by reaching out to the southern rebels and negotiating the Addis Ababa peace agreement.&nbsp; Nimeiri then shoved through a new constitution in April 1973 that created a one-party state.&nbsp; That party was Nimeiri&rsquo;s Sudan Socialist Union.&nbsp; He put himself in command of the armed forces and made the judiciary completely answerable to the president (Nimeiri).&nbsp; He also gave the security services broad powers of search and arrest and set up a large network of informers.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Another group of growing influence whom Nimeiri chose to co-opt was the Islamists: religious radicals led by Hassan al-Turabi, a man who would rise to great power after Omar al-Bashir took over as dictator of Sudan.&nbsp; To appease the Islamists, Nimeiri released Turabi from the prison where he had been languishing for seven years.&nbsp; Nimeiri began incorporating the Islamist agenda into his own.&nbsp; He supported Arab Iraq in its war against non-Arab Iran and, in September 1983, he imposed Shari&rsquo;a law on Sudan.&nbsp; He also sold out the southern rebels, supporting the 1978 Camp David Accords so that Israel would stop supplying the southern guerrillas.&nbsp; In 1983 he abolished the system of regional councils that had provided the southern Sudanese a modicum of power.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nimeiri made friends with the U.S. government, which viewed him as a counterweight to pro-Soviet regimes in Ethiopia and Libya.&nbsp; Fully aware that U.S. president Ronald Reagan would support any government that was &ldquo;anti-Communist,&rdquo; Nimeiri convinced the Reagan Administration that the southern rebel forces were Communists.&nbsp; This earned him $1.4 billion in aid, including US-made aircraft that he used to attack southern troops.&nbsp; In exchange, Reagan was able to use the &ldquo;defense of Sudan&rdquo; as his excuse for bombing Libya in 1986.&nbsp; Vice-President George Bush visited Nimeiri in Khartoum in 1985 while accompanied, rather bizarrely, by American televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.&nbsp; It was during a return trip to the United States in April 1985 that, after 16 years in power, Nimeiri&rsquo;s luck finally ran out.&nbsp; After a government-imposed rise in food prices, a popular uprising led to a coup that overthrew him.&nbsp; It was little realized at the time, but the most horrible aspect of Nimeiri&rsquo;s legacy was his creation of the practice of supplying tribal militias to fight as surrogates so that he could deny that the Sudanese army was fighting anti-government forces. The current Sudanese government is still employing the same tactic in Darfur.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; One year after the 1985 coup, Sudan held another election, although only half of the south took part.&nbsp; Sadiq al-Mahdi, the leader of the UMMA party, emerged as the prime minister.&nbsp; Sadiq committed Sudan to becoming an Islamic state.&nbsp; Upon his election in April 1986, he put it bluntly:&nbsp; &ldquo;Non-Muslims can ask us to protect their rights&mdash;and we will do that&mdash;but that&rsquo;s all they can ask.&nbsp; We wish to establish Islam as the source of law in Sudan because Sudan has a Muslim majority.&rdquo;&nbsp; This was an unusually bold, or one night say, rash statement, considering that the non-Muslim rebel groups in the south were dramatically gaining strength.&nbsp; In fact, the civil war, which had recommenced, was turning horrifically ugly.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The largest of the rebel groups was the SPLA, led by John Garang, who had earned a doctorate in agricultural economics at Iowa State University and had also attended a U.S. Army infantry officer&rsquo;s course at Fort Benning, Georgia.&nbsp; The SPLA represented the largest of the southern ethnic groups, the Dinka.&nbsp; In 1985 and 1986, the SPLA, desperate for supplies, staged a series of vicious attacks against civilians.&nbsp; But then the SPLA learned a miraculous lesson:&nbsp; if you treat civilians well, they might actually support you.&nbsp; As obvious as this may seem, it is a fact that continues to escape the Sudanese government.&nbsp; In 1987, the SPLA changed tactics.&nbsp; Instead of attacking villages and seizing food and other goods, they imposed a food tax that, once paid, protected villagers from seizures.&nbsp; Since the Sudanese army continued to attack people&rsquo;s homes, the popularity of the SPLA grew and, in 1988, for the first time, they were no longer viewed by other tribes as a purely Dinka army.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The government-supported Murahalin militia, on the other hand, were engaging in grotesque tactics, burning to the ground Dinka villages and killing civilians.&nbsp; They regularly abducted Dinka and sent them north to be kept in slavery or traded, while children, who had been raised non-Muslim, were forced to attend Islamic schools and adopt new names.&nbsp; Captured women were forced to endure genital mutilation.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; One particularly infamous atrocity, the Ed-Da&rsquo;ein Massacre, was carried out on March 28, 1987.&nbsp; Two thousand Dinka villagers, fearing an attack by a Muslim tribe, the Baggara, asked for police protection.&nbsp; The police told them to take shelter in nearby railway freight cars.&nbsp; That night, the police stood by and watched as the Baggara set fire to the railway cars, killing at least 1,000 people.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In 1987, the SPLA scored a stunning defeat of the Murahalin and the Sudanese army, which responded to the humiliation by attacking unarmed Dinka refugees in Southern Darfur.&nbsp; Sadiq al-Mahdi had never had the full support of the army, and he further alienated them with his dependency on tribal militias.&nbsp; As the military situation deteriorated and the SPLA took the fighting north to areas previously controlled by the government, the army demanded that Sadiq meet with John Garang and try to negotiate a ceasefire.&nbsp; Sadiq finally agreed.&nbsp; This decision infuriated one of the parties in his ruling coalition, Hassan al-Turabi&rsquo;s National Islamic Front (NIF), which withdrew from the coalition.&nbsp; On June 30, 1989, before Sadiq could meet with Garang, a group of Muslim army officers, led by Brigadier Omar al-Bashir and supported by the NIF, staged a coup.&nbsp; The coup leaders called themselves the National Movement for Correcting the Situation.</p>
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<strong>THE MAN</strong>&mdash;Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir was born in 1944 in Hoshe Bannaga, 100 kilometers northeast of Khartoum.&nbsp; A member of the Ja&rsquo;aliya tribe, he came from a rural working-class family and attended Ahlia Middle School in the town of Shendi.&nbsp; Bashir&rsquo;s family moved to Khartoum, where he attended secondary school and worked in a garage.&nbsp; Bashir found his niche in the military world.&nbsp; Admitted to a military academy for training as a pilot, he graduated from Sudan Military College at the age of 22 and then earned two master&rsquo;s degrees in military science, one from the Sudanese College of Commanders and the second in Malaysia.&nbsp; By 1973, he was serving as a paratrooper in the Arab-Israeli War.&nbsp; Bashir was jovial and well-liked, and his natural affinity with fellow officers would serve him well in the decades to come.&nbsp; He was particularly friendly with those officers who were sympathetic to the National Islamic Front.&nbsp; In late 1985, military intelligence identified Bashir as a potential leader of an NIF coup, and he was transferred to remote garrisons, including Muglad, which was used as a base for operations against rebel forces in the south and the Nuba Mountains.&nbsp; As a sign of his solidarity with his own forces, Bashir would choose as his second wife the widow of a fellow officer killed in the fighting.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In 1988 Bashir was promoted to brigadier and put in command of the 8th Infantry Brigade that was fighting the SPLA.&nbsp; He was one of the few senior officers who did not oppose Sadiq al-Mahdi&rsquo;s use of tribal militia,s and he even proposed formally incorporating them into the regular army.&nbsp; However, he was critical of Sadiq&rsquo;s conduct of the civil war, as well as his decision to negotiate with John Garang.&nbsp; In the middle of June 1989, Bashir returned to Khartoum, supposedly on his way to a training course in Cairo.&nbsp; Two weeks later, he was the leader of Sudan.</p>
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<strong>TAKING POWER</strong>&mdash;At first, the 1989 coup in Sudan appeared to be just another power grab by a group of junior officers, the sort of event that happened all the time in Africa.&nbsp; The Egyptian government, mindful that Egypt had given Bashir a military decoration for his services against Israel in 1973, praised Bashir and offered its support.&nbsp; Likewise, Saddam Hussein, within hours of the coup, rushed off a shipment of weapons as a gesture of thanks for Sudan&rsquo;s support of Iraq during its war against Iran.&nbsp; Libya sent 440,000 tons of oil, enough to last Sudan the rest of the year, while Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iraq threw in some oil for good measure.&nbsp; The United States was required by law to suspend non-humanitarian aid to Sudan because an unelected government had overthrown an elected one.&nbsp; However, the U.S. was reassured by Bashir&rsquo;s personal pledge to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Herman Cohen that he hoped to emulate secular Turkey.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; For his own part, Bashir acted like a typical leader of a successful bloodless coup.&nbsp; He immediately promoted himself to general and appointed himself premier and defense minister.&nbsp; He promised to fight corruption and embezzlement, and he offered amnesty to SPLA members if they turned in their weapons.&nbsp; In his first public appearance, Bashir spoke in favor of pan-Arabism and expressed solidarity with Sudan&rsquo;s Arab neighbors, Egypt and Libya.&nbsp; In a surprising gesture of diplomacy, Bashir visited non-Arab Iran and secured aid for a road building program in exchange for &ldquo;cooperation with security and intelligence.&rdquo;</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Domestically, Bashir pursued policies that were also typical of newly installed military dictators.&nbsp; He suspended the constitution, banned all political parties and trade unions and closed down the formerly free press.&nbsp; When the presidents of eight labor unions and professional associations submitted a petition for the democratic election of union officials, Bashir had them all arrested.&nbsp; He banned the Sudanese Bar Association, took charge of the appointment of judges (who had previously been chosen by sitting judges) and imposed an Islamic judicial system on the entire country.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To the outside world, the change of government in Sudan was hardly worth noting, and few, if any, observers could have predicted that Omar-al Bashir would still be in power more than fifteen years later.&nbsp; For the people of Sudan, however, particularly those in the south, it soon dawned on them that this was not a typical military coup.&nbsp; Bashir decreed that Arabic should replace all other languages and that although Christians would still be allowed to practice their religion because they were &ldquo;people of the book,&rdquo; Sudanese who followed traditional religions would be forced to convert to Islam.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Bashir set up a three-part government.&nbsp; The first part, the Revolutionary Command Council, was made up of the fifteen officers who carried out the coup, with Bashir as their chairman.&nbsp; The second part was a more formal national government with twenty ministers, who were either anti-corruption technocrats or members of the National Islamic Front.&nbsp; Over the next four years, NIF members would replace each of the technocrats.&nbsp; But the real power was held by the third part of the government, the semi-secret Council of Defenders, also known as the Committee of 40, which consisted of NIF members and young military officers.&nbsp; Chaired first by Bashir&rsquo;s old friend from military school, Ali Osman Muhammad Taha, and then by Hassan al-Turabi, the Council members served as &ldquo;advisors&rdquo; to Bashir.</p>
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This fusion of the Sudanese military with the radical NIF gave Bashir and Turabi the ability to carry out an aggressive Islamist agenda.&nbsp; Students, teachers and professors of all ages, along with civil servants, were forced to undergo six weeks of military training, during which they were subjected to endless lectures on Islam.&nbsp; In March 1991, Bashir&rsquo;s government issued the Public Order Act of 1991, which set forth an Islamic Penal Code.&nbsp; He restored flogging and amputation and formalized the death penalty for a wide range of offenses, including adultery, embezzlement, dealing on the black-market, the vague charge of &ldquo;corruption&rdquo; and organizing strikes, not to mention apostasy, the giving up of Islam.&nbsp; Emergency courts were authorized to seize illegal vendors and flog them in public on the spot.&nbsp; Bashir declared that God supervised his judiciary system because He is &ldquo;all-knowing and all-seeing.&rdquo;&nbsp;</p>
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The new laws were not kind to women.&nbsp; They prohibited social gatherings in which men and women danced together or mixed freely.&nbsp; In Khartoum State, police broke up wedding parties.&nbsp; Women were excluded from public life and had dress codes imposed upon them.&nbsp; Bashir issued a presidential decree that forbade women from wearing perfume or trousers and required them to wear veils and dresses down to their ankles.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Some women tried to continue wearing colorful traditional dresses called <em>thobe</em>, but the NIF&rsquo;s Guardians of Morality and Advocates of Good began flogging women in the streets.&nbsp; Women who defied other rules were arrested, jailed and tortured.&nbsp;</p>
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The government also banned the teaching of art and music because it spread western and African culture and closed down the Institute of Music and Drama at Khartoum University because the NIF objected to classical Arabic music.&nbsp; Needless to say, Bashir&rsquo;s government banned alcohol.&nbsp; But in February 1995, the ministry of health took this restriction even further, forbidding the importation of medicines containing alcohol, including the anti-malarial drug chloroquine, which led to a widespread epidemic of malaria.&nbsp; Eighty percent of pharmacies shut their doors and so many doctors left the country that the government banned all travel by medical personnel.</p>
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<strong>THE MAN BEHIND THE THRONE</strong>&mdash;To most Sudan watchers, it was difficult to imagine that the thuggish Omar al-Bashir could create on his own the principles of a new rigid Islamic state.&nbsp; Many found it easier to categorize Bashir as a mere front man for the better-educated and more sophisticated leader of the National Islamic Front, Hassan al-Turabi.&nbsp; Although Bashir would prove to be wilier than he at first appeared, Turabi&rsquo;s influence on Sudanese politics is undeniable.</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Born in 1932, Turabi was the son of an Islamic judge and grew up in an orthodox family that opposed the more tolerant Sufi branch of Islam that was popular in Sudan.&nbsp; He graduated with a B.A. in law from Khartoum University and went on to earn a master&rsquo;s degree in law from the London School of Economics and a doctorate in law from the Sorbonne in Paris.&nbsp; When Turabi returned to Sudan in 1965, he was appointed dean of the Law School at the University of Khartoum.&nbsp; He was also the secretary-general of the Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an activist orthodox group founded in Egypt in 1928 and to whose ideas he was first exposed in London.&nbsp; At the university, Turabi taught students to give up Sufi mysticism, reject the formalism of Iran&rsquo;s Ayatollah Khomeini and instead interpret Islam and their own behavior according to Shari&rsquo;a law.&nbsp;</p>
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Turabi was particularly popular with foreigners, who enjoyed his lively good humor.&nbsp; In 1970 Jaafar Nimeiri had Turabi thrown into prison, where he remained for the next seven years until Nimeiri decided that he needed the support of the Islamists.&nbsp; Turabi immersed himself in the creation of an Islamic banking system in which depositors are given a partnership rather than interest.&nbsp; Three months after Nimeiri&rsquo;s fall in 1985, Turabi founded the National Islamic Front.&nbsp; He led the party in the 1986 elections, campaigning for Shari&rsquo;a and universal conscription.&nbsp; This platform did not appeal to the Sudanese majority, and the NIF did so poorly that Turabi himself lost in his own constituency in Omdurman.&nbsp;</p>
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Two years after the election, the victor, Sadiq al-Mahdi, who happened to be Turabi&rsquo;s brother-in-law, appointed Turabi attorney general.&nbsp; In this position, Turabi was able to institute a law that outlawed apostasy, in other words, being a Muslim who gives up Islam.&nbsp; However, the wording of the bill was sufficiently vague to be interpreted to include opposition to the current Islamic government.&nbsp; He also banned public demonstrations by the populist National Alliance, a party that advocated peace negotiations with John Garang and the SPLA.&nbsp; In February 1989, Sadiq promoted Turabi to deputy prime minister and foreign minister.&nbsp;</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When Bashir took charge in the 1989 coup, the Revolutionary Command Council had Turabi put under house arrest.&nbsp; However, this was merely an empty gesture of false impartiality, as Turabi&rsquo;s followers continued to operate the bureaucracy for the Revolutionary Command Council.&nbsp; He was released the following year.&nbsp; Turabi tried to promote <em>Shura</em>, Islamic democracy, which he described as government by consultation with learned males who come to a consensus, thus eliminating the need for passing written laws.&nbsp; He and his wife, Wisal al-Mahdi, founded the International Organization of Islamic Women.&nbsp; According to their interpretation of Islamic feminism, female subservience has no place in Islam, and women can own property, attend public meetings and take part in political affairs.&nbsp; Non-Muslim women on the other hand, are nothing more than the spoils of war, property to be owned and disposed of.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The presence of the troops of the United States and other western nations on the soil (or sand) of Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War, served as a great marketing tool for Islamist leaders, who distributed tapes of their speeches throughout the Arabic-speaking world.&nbsp; Turabi&rsquo;s tapes did not achieve the widespread popularity of a Saudi businessman named Osama bin Laden, but Turabi did develop a substantial following.&nbsp; In December 1990, he visited Chicago, where he attended a conference of the Islamic Committee for Palestine and spoke on &ldquo;Islam: The Road to Victory.&rdquo;&nbsp; One of Turabi&rsquo;s prot&eacute;g&eacute;s was Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and future lieutenant to Osama bin laden in Al-Qaeda.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In April 1991, Turabi, with some financial backing from bin Laden, organized the first general assembly of the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress (PAIC), which brought together delegates from 45 nations.&nbsp; Although the PAIC would soon gain infamy as a meeting place for terrorists, at the 1991 congress Turabi pulled off a diplomatic coup by bringing together intelligence officers from Iran and Iraq for the first time since the two nations fought a horrific war, and Iran announced that it would end its ten-year blockade of Iraq.</p>
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&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>HASSAN AL-TURABI IN AMERICA</strong>&mdash;In May 1992, Turabi arrived in North America for a tour that would highlight his position as an important intellectual power broker.&nbsp; Little suspecting that his life was about to take a dramatic turn, he began by attending a scholarly roundtable at the University of South Florida.&nbsp; Lecturing on &ldquo;Islam, Democracy, the State and the West,&rdquo; some of his statements seemed so divorced from reality that they left many participants speechless.&nbsp; Completely ignoring the ongoing civil war, he declared, &ldquo;In Sudanese society, ethnic minorities tend to disappear,&rdquo; and added &ldquo;the Sudanese are Arab in culture&hellip;.There is no Arab-African divide anywhere in the Sudan.&rdquo;&nbsp; He called the worldwide Islamist movement &ldquo;highly democratic&hellip;. Islam shuns absolute government, absolute authority, dynastic authority and individual authority.&rdquo;&nbsp; He called the 1991 Gulf War &ldquo;a blessing in disguise because Islamist movements around the world were &ldquo;turned into mass movements&rdquo; and were &ldquo;radicalized.&rdquo;&nbsp; Confronted with accusations that the Sudanese government practiced torture, Turabi, rather than deny the charge, shrugged it off and stated that &ldquo;This behavior is typical of police around the world.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Turabi moved on to Washington D.C., where he appeared before the Africa Subcommittee of the House of Representatives and repeated his opinions, leaving many committee members bewildered.&nbsp; In an interview with <em>New Perspectives Quarterly</em>, he again contradicted reality by intoning, &ldquo;We have no interest in terrorism&hellip;.Islam can have nothing to do with terrorism.&rdquo;&nbsp; Flushed with his rhetorical successes, Turabi flew to Toronto, where he was scheduled to have meetings with government officials and representatives of the oil industry.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>HASSAN AL-TURABI&rsquo;S UNFORTUNATE ENCOUNTER</strong>&mdash;On the morning of May 25, 1992, Turabi flew to Ottawa to meet with functionaries in the Department of External Affairs.&nbsp; His appearance was met by a demonstration of Sudanese exiles protesting the policies of Turabi and Bashir.&nbsp; That evening, one of the protesters, 35-year-old Hashim Badr el Din Mohammad, was dropping off a friend at the airport when he noticed Turabi sipping coffee with two companions.&nbsp; A Sufi who was infuriated by the impositions of Turabi&rsquo;s intolerant brand of Islam, Hashim rushed towards Turabi yelling, in English, &ldquo;Murderer, murderer, slave master!&nbsp; Terrorist in Canada! Fascist in Canada! Slave master in Canada!&rdquo;&nbsp; And in Arabic, &ldquo;Stop.&nbsp; Where are you going to? I will never let you go.&rdquo;&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Unfortunately for Turabi, Hashim was not just another oppressed Sudanese; he was a 6&rsquo;8&rdquo; karate coach with a seventh degree black belt.&nbsp; One of Turabi&rsquo;s companions, a Muslim minister from Chicago named Ahmed Osman Makki, lunged at Hashim, who knocked him to the floor.&nbsp; Turabi tried to hold off Hashim, but the latter smashed him in the side of the head and sent him flying through the air.&nbsp; Turabi spent the next four weeks in an Ottawa hospital and could not speak or control his movements.&nbsp; Although Turabi eventually made a full recovery, the second PAIC General Assembly, scheduled for the autumn, had to be cancelled.&nbsp; As for Hashim, a sympathetic jury acquitted him on the charge of assault on the basis that Makki and Turabi had struck him first.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>CARLOS THE JACKAL</strong>&mdash;Illich Ram&iacute;rez S&aacute;nchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, was an anti-Israeli Venezuelan Marxist who became the most notorious terrorist of the 1970s and mid-1980s.&nbsp; His most famous act was a 1975 attack on OPEC headquarters in Vienna, during which he and five accomplices took more than sixty hostages.&nbsp; Sometimes working on a for-hire basis, Carlos organized a variety of bomb attacks, most of them in France.&nbsp; He also shot to death an informer and two Parisian policemen who had come to arrest him.&nbsp; By 1990, Carlos was considered over-the-hill and inactive.&nbsp; However, he was still wanted for the crimes he had committed when he was younger.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
After being expelled from Syria, he was given refuge, in August 1993, in Sudan, where he was welcomed by Bashir and Turabi.&nbsp; However, as he settled into life in Khartoum, it became clear that Carlos did not exactly pursue a lifestyle that was consistent with Islamist ideals.&nbsp; In fact, he was an alcoholic and a womanizer.&nbsp; But Carlos had an even worse strike against him:&nbsp; he was being tracked by the Western world&rsquo;s leading spy agencies.&nbsp; The CIA informed French intelligence that they had pinpointed Carlos&rsquo; location in Sudan.&nbsp; The French confirmed the identification at the PAIC General Assembly in December 1993.&nbsp; Initially, Bashir&rsquo;s government refused to acknowledge that Carlos was in the country.&nbsp; However, the French produced photographs of Carlos engaged in behavior that did not reflect the regime&rsquo;s values and threatened to reveal to the Islamic world that Sudan was harboring a debauched Marxist terrorist.&nbsp; Bashir capitulated and turned over negotiations to Turabi, who agreed to hand over Carlos to the French.&nbsp; In exchange, France gave Sudan military equipment, police training, a desalination plant, a grant to Sudan Airways and access to aerial photographs of SPLA troop positions in the south.&nbsp; The French also agreed to publicly praise Hassan al-Turabi for his role as a mediator with Algerian Islamists.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In August 1994, Carlos checked into Ibn Khalmud hospital for minor surgery relating to a low sperm count.&nbsp; While he was recovering, security personnel informed Carlos and his wife that his life was in danger and he had to be transferred to a military hospital.&nbsp; From there he was moved to a private villa and then, in the middle of the night, he was snatched by French agents and flown to Paris, where he was tried for the murder of the French policemen, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment; and it is in prison that he remains today.</p>
<p>
The success of this deal would inspire Bashir and Turabi to offer for trade another terrorist to whom they had granted sanctuary:&nbsp; Saudi businessman Osama bin Laden.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>OSAMA BIN LADEN IN SUDAN</strong>&mdash;It would appear that bin Laden first met Hassan al-Turabi during a visit to Sudan in 1984.&nbsp; Four years later, he opened an air charter company in Khartoum and in late 1989, after the coup that brought Omar al-Bashir to power, bin Laden established the Wadi al-Aqiq holding company and deposited $50 million in a previously minor bank in Khartoum.&nbsp; Before long, bin Laden started investing that money.&nbsp; He opened thirty businesses, including a trucking company, a furniture manufacturer and a bakery.&nbsp; He also exported from Sudan fruits, vegetables, sesame, wheat and cotton, and imported into Sudan honey, sweets, farm equipment and, oh yes, arms.&nbsp; He arranged to send Sudanese cotton to the Taliban in Afghanistan in exchange for weapons that were supposedly captured from Soviet troops.&nbsp; Coming from a family that made its fortune in the construction business, it was not surprising that he also received the contract to build an airport at Port Sudan and to construct the road from Port Sudan to Khartoum.&nbsp; Some of the deals between Bashir and bin Laden may have helped the Sudanese government, but they were damaging to the Sudanese people.&nbsp; When the government could no longer pay for the roadwork bin Laden&rsquo;s company was doing, they gave him instead a million acres of farmland in the Gash River Delta on the Eritrean border.&nbsp; Bin Laden then hurt the area&rsquo;s poor farmers by overplanting watermelons and driving down the price, and he hurt the rich farmers by gaining a monopoly on sesame exports.&nbsp; In fact, he brokered a deal that sent the entire Sudanese sesame crop to Russia in exchange for arms.&nbsp; Bashir also granted bin Laden tax exemptions on all his businesses.&nbsp; And bin Laden took Hassan al-Turabi&rsquo;s niece as his third wife in exchange for duty-free importation of construction equipment and vehicles.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Of course, Osama bin Laden had other interests besides making money.&nbsp; After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, bin Laden wrote a ten-page letter to Saudi defense minister Prince Sultan offering to use the skills he learned fighting the Communists in Afghanistan to train Saudis to defend themselves.&nbsp; He even offered the use of his family&rsquo;s construction equipment to dig trenches along Saudi Arabia&rsquo;s border with Iraq.&nbsp; The Saudi royal family, wary of giving the popular bin Laden too much power, instead hired the United States and its allies to defend the country.&nbsp; By 1991, Osama bin Laden was no longer welcome in his native Saudi Arabia.&nbsp; After sojourning in Pakistan, he arrived, at the invitation of Turabi, in Sudan, assuring himself the best of Sudanese hospitality by donating $5 million to Turabi&rsquo;s National Islamic Front.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In March 1990, Bashir announced that all &ldquo;Arab brothers&rdquo; could enter Sudan without a visa.&nbsp; Bin Laden knew how to exploit this ruling.&nbsp; He established a &ldquo;farm&rdquo; on the Blue Nile south of Khartoum that was actually a group of training camps to teach the use of weapons and explosives.&nbsp; There were 23 camps for Islamists who had fought in Afghanistan, three camps for Al-Qaeda and training courses for terrorist groups from Egypt and Algeria, insurgents from Yemen and Eritrea, Palestinian fighters for Hamas and Hezbollah and anti-Gaddafi Libyans.&nbsp; Bin Laden donated $2.5 million to operate the Port Sudan airport in exchange for the right to use it to ship arms to sympathetic groups in Somalia and Yemen.&nbsp; He also funded a program that, under the auspices of the NIF, provided forced military training of university and secondary students.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In 1994, bin Laden was stripped of his Saudi citizenship and settled in Sudan.&nbsp; By 1996, however, Bashir and Turabi concluded that bin Laden was too hot to handle.&nbsp; Considering how much they had gained by their betrayal of Carlos the Jackal, they decided to try to make a similar deal for Osama bin Laden.&nbsp; First they tried to extradite bin Laden to Saudi Arabia, but the Saudi royal family refused to take him.&nbsp; Then they asked the Saudis to act as go-betweens for a deal with the United States.&nbsp; In fact, a representative of Bashir, Al-Fatih Urwah, did meet with the CIA in Virginia.&nbsp; However, the Bill Clinton Administration, noting that in the U.S. bin Laden was only an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and distrustful of the Sudanese government, turned down the offer to negotiate for bin Laden.&nbsp; On May 18, 1996, bin Laden left Sudan at the request of the Sudanese government and moved to Afghanistan.&nbsp; A bitter bin Laden claimed that the Sudanese owed him millions of dollars, and he characterized the Bashir-Turabi leadership as &ldquo;a mixture of religion and organized crime.&rdquo;</p>
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&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>SUPPORTING TERRORISM</strong>&mdash;It was nice to have Osama bin Laden&rsquo;s money, but Hassan al-Turabi was perfectly capable of supporting terrorist groups without it.&nbsp; The second PAIC General Assembly, delayed because of Turabi&rsquo;s Canadian injury, was finally held in December 1993 and brought together a veritable who&rsquo;s who of terrorist groups.&nbsp; Turabi would boast, &ldquo;I am close to &hellip;every Islamic movement in the world, secret or public.&rdquo;&nbsp; In 1992, Ayman al-Zawahari acquired funding from Iran to establish three training camps in Sudan, including one in Omar Bashir&rsquo;s childhood hometown of Shendi.&nbsp; While people in Sudan were trying to cope with food shortages, the PAIC sent a thousand tons of food and medicine to Somalia&rsquo;s Islamic Unity Party.&nbsp; When, in October 1994, a bus bomber killed 22 Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv, Turabi called it &ldquo;an honorable act.&rdquo;&nbsp; As a matter of record, this was a year and a half after he organized a conference on religious tolerance.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; With the end of the Cold War, the U.S. government no longer saw a need to support the Sudanese extremist government.&nbsp; One month after the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993, terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in New York, killing six people and injuring about 1,000.&nbsp; Four months later, U.S. authorities arrested a member of the Sudanese delegation to the U.N. and charged him with planning another attack.&nbsp; They caught red-handed bombmaker Siddiq Ibrahim Siddighli, who had been Turabi&rsquo;s bodyguard during his 1992 visit.&nbsp; The U.S. State Department added Sudan to its list of states supporting terrorism, a group that Turabi referred to as &ldquo;a list of honor.&rdquo;&nbsp; In addition to supporting terror in the U.S., the government cited the fact that Sudan provided sanctuary for, among others, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad, the Algerian FIS and terrorist groups from Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In 1995, Bashir and Turabi almost went too far when they tried to assassinate the dictator of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak.&nbsp; On June 24 of that year, Mubarak was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for a meeting of the Organization of African Unity when two Egyptian assassins based in Khartoum fired at his limousine.&nbsp; They were themselves shot to death, as were three accomplices.&nbsp; Another three were arrested and three more escaped.&nbsp; An Ethiopian investigation determined that the assassins were staying in a house rented by a Sudanese citizen, and that their weapons were delivered by Sudan Airways.&nbsp; The incident led to two days of fighting between Egyptian and Sudanese forces.&nbsp; Eventually, the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Sudan for refusing to extradite the three escapees.&nbsp; By this time, Bashir had alienated almost every other government in the world.&nbsp; Out of the entire community of nations, Sudan&rsquo;s only remaining allies could be counted on the fingers of two hands:&nbsp; Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, China, Syria, Yemen, Qatar and Malaysia.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; On August 7, 1998, terrorists bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 263 people, including twelve Americans, and wounding 4,000.&nbsp; In retaliation, two weeks later, President Clinton ordered missile attacks against Osama bin Laden&rsquo;s Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.&nbsp; For reasons not fully known, he also bombed the Al-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries plant in Sudan, claiming that it was financed by bin Laden, and that it produced precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of VX nerve gas.&nbsp; The owner of the plant, Salih Idris, denied involvement in the making of weapons, invited foreign journalists to visit his plant and hired a US. firm to prove that he had no connection with Osama bin Laden.&nbsp; In May 1999, the U.S. government quietly released the $24 million of frozen funds that Idris had invested in U.S. accounts.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Omar al-Bashir came to the conclusion that terrorism was the new equivalent of Communism and that one could gain the support&mdash;and money&mdash;of the United States by offering to become an ally of the U.S. War on Terrorism.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>THE SECOND CIVIL WAR</strong>&mdash;For all the time and effort that Bashir and Turabi put into transforming Sudan into an extreme Islamist state, they still had to deal with a monster of a problem:&nbsp; the growing rebellion among non-Muslims in the south.&nbsp; The second civil war had broken out in 1983 and it was dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war, and with the threat of negotiations, that led to Bashir&rsquo;s ascension to power in 1989.&nbsp; Once Bashir gained control of the nation and its military, he had to match his words with action.&nbsp; The southern rebel groups had no intention of waiting for Bashir to get himself organized.&nbsp; In October, the SPLA defeated government forces at Kurmuk and threatened the Roseires Dam that supplied most of the electricity for much of the north.&nbsp; Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi sent weapons and military supplies to shore up the Sudanese armed forces in exchange for the freedom for Libya to use the borderlands in Darfur to support rebels who were fighting Gaddafi&rsquo;s enemies in Chad.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Saddam Hussein also gave Bashir military support.&nbsp; Bashir supported Saddam&rsquo;s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, but this decision backfired.&nbsp; Iraq no longer had weapons to share with Sudan, while Bashir lost the support of Saudi Arabia and the other wealthy Gulf states, which was a critical blow to the Sudanese economy because most of the 750,000 Sudanese who had been working in the Gulf states and sending money home were expelled.&nbsp; In addition, the Gulf nations stopped buying cereals and livestock from Sudan, which was forced to impose grain rationing at home.&nbsp; By this time, African Watch had reported that 500,000 Sudanese had died as a result of war or famine, and the group condemned both government and SPLA troops for gross human rights violations.</p>
<p>
The SPLA was growing in strength, but in 1991 two unexpected developments would save Bashir&rsquo;s forces from collapse.&nbsp; In May, in Ethiopia, the government of&nbsp; Mengistu Haile Mariam, which had supported the southern rebels, was overthrown and replaced by a government that was sympathetic to Bashir.&nbsp; Almost overnight, the SPLA lost important bases and supply routes, and 200,000 refugees, who had been living in Ethiopia, were forced to return to Sudan.&nbsp; Bashir reacted quickly to this humanitarian crisis:&nbsp; he sent his air force to drop bombs on the refugees.&nbsp; The outside world was desperate to help the refugees, but Bashir and his government had a policy for dealing with this problem that they would follow forever.&nbsp; Their strategy was to burn down villages, force the inhabitants into camps, classify them as refugees, apply for disaster relief and then distribute the relief goods to pro-government areas, giving it to displaced families only if they agreed to convert to Islam.&nbsp; Bashir would ultimately bungle his relations with the new Ethiopian government by boasting to the BBC that anti-rebel attacks were being launched from Sudanese bases in Ethiopia.&nbsp; This was true, but the Ethiopians had intended the fact to remain secret.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Fortunately for Bashir, the SPLA would soon receive another setback.&nbsp; John Garang may have been the military leader of an oppressed people but, despite his American education, he was a thug and a dictator, just like Bashir.&nbsp; He even modeled his internal security apparatus after that of the Sudanese army.&nbsp; In August he was &ldquo;overthrown&rdquo; by Riak Machar, a member of the second largest southern tribe, the Nuer.&nbsp; Machar accepted weapons and supplies from Bashir&rsquo;s government, but when this became known, Machar lost credibility.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The split in the SPLA helped Bashir, but the war was drastically depleting the Sudanese economy.&nbsp; Military spending, which accounted for 4% of the national budget between 1985 and 1990, rose to 13% between 1990 and 1995.&nbsp; The per capita GDP of Sudan was about $100, almost all of which was actually emergency aid.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In late 1991, the war spread to the Nuba Mountains, home to 1.5 million people who spoke fifty different languages and dialects.&nbsp; Although most of the Nubian tribes were Muslims, they followed Sufism and so, in the eyes of Turabi and Bashir, they were really anti-Islam.&nbsp; Bashir ordered the destruction of mosques in the Nuba Mountains and the prohibition of the use of local languages.&nbsp; The government seized land, sold it to Arab businessmen and forced the local people into camps, which they called &ldquo;peace villages.&rdquo;&nbsp; Almost one third of the population was displaced.&nbsp; Non-Muslim men were circumcised, and their children were forced to attend Quranic schools.&nbsp; According to Amnesty International, troops used civilians as human shields.&nbsp; In order to justify this jihad against fellow Moslems, Turabi arranged for the issuance of a fatwa that broadened the definition of apostasy:&nbsp; &ldquo;An insurgent who was previously a Muslim is now an apostate; and a non-Muslim is a non-believer standing as a bulwark against the spread of Islam, and Islam has granted the freedom of killing both of them.&rdquo;&nbsp; Thus, people who had, for generations, identified themselves as Muslims found themselves redefined as the mortal enemies of Islam.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The National Islamic Front had created the Popular Defence Force (PDF) to supplement (and eventually replace) the regular armed forces.&nbsp; In fact, they were used as cannon fodder in the fighting against southern rebels.&nbsp; The PDF was made up of NIF volunteers, Arab tribal militias and conscripted students and civil servants.&nbsp; In a 1993 radio broadcast, Bashir praised the PDF as &ldquo;the school for national and spiritual education.&rdquo;&nbsp; He added that through the PDF, &ldquo;the Sudanese citizens&rsquo; mind can be remodeled and his religious consciousness enhanced.&rdquo;&nbsp; Bashir tried to boost the spirits of his army by declaring that soldiers who die in battle are martyrs who &ldquo;irrigate the land of the south with their blood so the land may sprout dignity and honor,&rdquo; and he promised them that they would ascend directly to paradise.&nbsp; Just to be on the safe side, he allowed war booty to be divided among the soldiers, with officers being given double shares and bonuses given to anyone who impregnated a non-Muslim woman.&nbsp; As unpaid fighters, militia members were allowed to include as booty not just cattle and grain, but humans.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Still, the number of casualties on the government side was so high that the number of volunteers began to dwindle.&nbsp; Bashir declared all males aged 18 to 30 draftable and then seized them off the streets and dragged them off buses.&nbsp; When some military leaders complained to Bashir that these tactics lowered the quality of the army, Bashir had the complainants arrested.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Bashir and Turabi also turned their wrath against Christians.&nbsp; Television commentators warned non-Muslims that they would go to hell.&nbsp; In February 1992, all Christian schools were nationalized.&nbsp; During the &ldquo;Arabization&rdquo; of Juba in Equatoria state, children were shot to death as they fled and, their bodies were found floating down the Nile with their book bags still on their backs.&nbsp; In one particularly notorious case, a Christian pilot, Giorgis Yustus Butrus, who was the son of the Coptic bishop of Khartoum, was charged with possessing foreign currency.&nbsp; He was offered a pardon if he would convert to Islam. &nbsp;He refused and was executed.&nbsp; Thousands of Muslims joined with Christians in his funeral procession through Khartoum.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>A CLASSIC DICTATORSHIP ELECTION</strong>&mdash;By 1996, the concept of democracy had spread around the world, and even dictators felt obligated to hold elections.&nbsp; Sudan actually had a history of elections going back more than forty years.&nbsp; Bashir and Turabi were wise enough to know that if a truly free election was held, the National Islamic Front would lose.&nbsp; So, they concocted a strategy that assured their victory in 1996.&nbsp; There were 400 national assembly seats to be &ldquo;contested,&rdquo; so that 201 were needed for a majority.&nbsp; The national congress of the NIF chose 125 of the assembly members.&nbsp; Elections in the south were cancelled because of the war, so Bashir personally selected the 46 southern representatives.&nbsp; The government announced that the number of candidates for the remaining seats would be limited because competition in politics was damaging to the &ldquo;cohesion of the community.&rdquo;&nbsp; Fifty NIF candidates ran unopposed, automatically giving the NIF 225 seats&mdash;a majority&mdash;before the voting even began.&nbsp; To be on the safe side, security officials stored the ballot boxes in their office each evening and no records were kept of who voted.&nbsp; As for the presidential election, there were fifty candidates, but they were forbidden from campaigning in 25 of the 26 Sudanese states.&nbsp; Since the government had complete control of all aspects of the media, it was almost as if Omar al-Bashir was the only candidate.&nbsp; Not surprisingly, it was announced that he had won 75.7% of the votes.&nbsp; With the annoyance of democratic elections out of the way, Bashir could go back to ruling the country.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>THE FINAL BATTLE&hellip;WITH HASSAN AL-TURABI</strong>&mdash;It was inevitable that conflict would eventually break out between Bashir and Hassan al-Turabi.&nbsp; Turabi, the Islamist theoretician and politician, had come so far, and only Bashir stood between him and his goal of becoming the official ruler of Sudan, free to speak not just at scholarly roundtables, but at the United Nations and other international forums.&nbsp; But Bashir was not about to step aside voluntarily.&nbsp; In his first 2&frac12; years as leader of Sudan, he suppressed five separate coup attempts, including one in April 1990, to which he responded by arresting 28 army and police officers.&nbsp; Within 24 hours they were all tried, convicted, executed and buried.&nbsp; Bashir was not going to submit to Turabi&rsquo;s political ambitions without a fight.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In January 1993, Turabi pressed for the dissolution of the Revolutionary Command Council in a strategic attempt to weaken the power of the military.&nbsp; Bashir agreed to this nine months later, but installed himself as president of the new civilian government.&nbsp; While publicly maintaining an image of unity, Turabi and Bashir engaged in an ongoing series of chess-like moves.&nbsp; As an example, as part of Turabi&rsquo;s campaign to crush Muslim groups with which he did not agree, in February 1994 he ordered an attack on a mosque belonging to Ansar al-Sunna, a puritanical sect related to Saudi-supported Wahhabism.&nbsp; Turabi&rsquo;s gunmen murdered 26 followers inside their mosque.&nbsp; Later that year, Bashir, in search of allies against Turabi and the National Islamic Front, allowed Ansar al-Sunna to resume activities.&nbsp; Once, in July 1995, Bashir was invited to speak at Khartoum University.&nbsp; His appearance was met by protests led by the NIF-controlled student union, leading to suspicions that the invitation had been a Turabi trick to publicly embarrass Bashir.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Bashir-Turabi power struggle accelerated in 1999.&nbsp; Reaching out to exiled opposition leaders, Turabi met with Sadiq al-Mahdi (his brother-in-law) while Bashir invited Jaafar Nimeiri to return to Sudan and offered him a pension.&nbsp; In an attempt to reduce the power of the president (Bashir) and to put the military under civilian control, Turabi pushed through a law allowing the introduction of political parties and had himself elected secretary-general of the National Congress Party.&nbsp; He also offered to meet with leaders of the southern rebel groups&mdash;in Mecca.&nbsp; Since they were all followers of Christianity and traditional religions, they declined the invitation.&nbsp; Meanwhile Bashir countered by returning confiscated property to the leaders of the major Islamic opposition parties.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Turabi instigated a debate in parliament to create a new constitution with a strong prime minister and a strong parliament.&nbsp; Bashir responded by dissolving parliament and declaring a state of emergency.&nbsp; He also closed all offices of Turabi&rsquo;s National Congress Party, whereupon Turabi created a new party, the Popular National Congress.&nbsp; In February 2001, Turabi and his new party signed an agreement with John Garang&rsquo;s Sudanese Peoples&rsquo; Liberation Movement.&nbsp; After 11&frac12; years of killing each other&rsquo;s supporters, Hassan al-Turabi and John Garang were suddenly partners.&nbsp; Bashir immediately had Turabi arrested and charged him with &ldquo;communicating with the enemy.&rdquo;&nbsp; Exposed as a self-servicing hypocrite to hard-core Islamists, Turabi lost his power base and, languishing in prison and house arrest, he ceased to be a player in Sudanese politics.&nbsp; Observers who had viewed Bashir as nothing more than a front man for Turabi were forced to accept him as the undisputed dictator of Sudan.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>OIL</strong>&mdash;When asked what could save Sudan, Hassan al-Turabi once replied, &ldquo;God&hellip; and southern oil.&rdquo;&nbsp; Although exploration began in the 1960s, Chevron achieved its first significant strike, in South Kordofan, in 1980.&nbsp; Two years later, another strike was made on the margin between Arab Sudan and black Sudan.&nbsp; In 1984, southern insurgents killed four Chevron employees, leading Chevron to withdraw from the country.&nbsp; Still, the lure of huge profits was too great to be ignored.&nbsp; Talisman Energy of Canada filled the void left by Chevron.&nbsp; Oil companies from China, Sweden, France and Malaysia would also ultimately take their chances in Sudan.&nbsp; In November 1989, United Nations Human Rights Rapporteur Leonardo Franco reported that the Sudanese government had cleared the 100 kilometers surrounding the southern oil fields by using the Talisman airfield to launch fighter jets to bomb the villages near the oil fields.&nbsp; Similar actions were taken by the military and militia to clear out black Sudanese in 1992.&nbsp; The following year, Bashir&rsquo;s government used a more subtle tactic to gain control of oil fields in South Kordofan:&nbsp; they redrew the state boundaries to reposition oil-rich areas so that they would fall under the control of Arab-dominated regional governments.&nbsp; After much struggle and fighting, Bashir inaugurated an oil terminal south of Port Sudan in August 1999, and a pipeline from the oil fields went fully operational at the beginning of 2000, reducing Sudan&rsquo;s dependence on Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf oil states.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>PEACE AS A TACTIC IN THE ENDLESS WAR</strong>&mdash;The immensity of the carnage in the Sudanese civil wars has been so great that periodically the international community has tried to interfere and promote a negotiated settlement to the fighting.&nbsp; For Omar al-Bashir, ceasefires have proven useful as a means to resupply and reposition troops and to plan the next offensive.&nbsp; The signing of peace agreements serves the purpose of pitting one rebel group against another and impressing foreign governments with his moderation (particularly in comparison with Hassan al-Turabi).&nbsp;</p>
<p>
This manipulation of the peace process reached its peak in 2005, when Bashir, less than four years after jailing Turabi for &ldquo;communicating with the enemy,&rdquo; signed a peace agreement with John Garang that gave Garang the position of vice-president of Sudan.&nbsp; Exhausted foreign diplomats hailed the agreement as a great step forward and there were mass celebrations in Sudan.&nbsp; However, a simple reading of the text of the agreement between Bashir and Garang revealed that it was as flawed as the one that ended the first civil war in 1973.&nbsp; To begin with, it made no provision for the removal of northern troops from the south.&nbsp; It did promise the southerners that they could vote for or against secession&hellip;in six years&rsquo; time.&nbsp; Given Bashir&rsquo;s record, the chances for such an election actually taking place, seemed slim.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s more, the agreement was only signed with Garang and did not include other southern rebel groups, much less groups fighting Bashir&rsquo;s government in the east and the west.&nbsp; Finally, Garang, a dictator himself, appeared to sell out his followers.&nbsp; After more than twenty years of fighting for the right of non-Islamic southerners to choose independence, upon assuming his role as vice-president, he began speaking in favor of a united Sudan.&nbsp; Garang&rsquo;s intentions will remain forever unknown because, only three weeks after his inauguration as vice-president, he was killed in a helicopter crash.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>DARFUR</strong>&mdash;Bashir&rsquo;s pledge to end the civil war in the south appeared particularly insincere considering the horrific atrocities that his troops and associated militia were committing in the western state of Darfur, a region of more than 3.5 million people inhabited by non-Arabic Muslims.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; For hundreds of years, from the 15th century until World War I, the region was ruled by the Fur Sultanate.&nbsp; It was finally incorporated into Sudan in 1916.&nbsp; The Fur and other tribes may have been followers of Islam, but to the Arab rulers of independent Sudan, they were black, just like the traditionalists and Christians in the south, and were thus subject in the best of times to disregard and in the worst of times to slavery and slaughter.&nbsp; A long drought that stretched from the mid-1970s into the early 1980s forced Arab cattle-herding tribes into the traditional territory of non-Arab tribes.&nbsp; Rather than mediate this problem, the Sudanese government sided completely with their fellow Arabs and even refused to acknowledge the ensuing famine, which so infuriated the governor of Darfur that he resigned in protest.&nbsp; By the time Bashir took power, slave-trading in Darfur was so widespread that the price of a slave boy had dropped from $90 to $10. (Cows went for $100.)&nbsp; Thousands of Fur were killed, and locals who resisted the government troops and government-supported militia were dismissed as &ldquo;bandits&rdquo; and &ldquo;outlaws.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; By 2003, there were two major rebel movements operating in Darfur.&nbsp; To counter their influence, Bashir launched a ghastly campaign of destruction and ethnic cleansing.&nbsp; Government fighter jets and helicopters bombed villages, and minutes later government-supported militia, known as the Janjaweed, communicating by satellite phones, arrived on horseback and camel to murder, torture and rape the villagers.&nbsp; The bombers targeted hospitals and schools, and the Janjaweed burned crops and threw dead bodies into wells in order to contaminate the water supply.&nbsp; On February 9, 2004, in a George W. Bushian &ldquo;Mission Accomplished&rdquo; moment, Bashir declared the Darfur war finished, although in reality the killing continued.&nbsp; By the end of 2005, human rights groups estimated that 180,000 people had died, and two million people were left homeless, while not a single Janjaweed member had been arrested for his crimes.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The United States has a hapless history of dealing with such Sudanese atrocities.&nbsp; On November 3, 1996, President Bill Clinton announced a ban on the importation of goods and services from Sudan.&nbsp; However, he made an exception for gum Arabic, of which Darfur is a major source, because it was considered vital to the manufacture of soft drinks, adhesives and other products.&nbsp; On July 23, 2004, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution declaring the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed guilty of genocide in Darfur, but by then the invasion and occupation of Iraq had led to the loss of U.S. credibility and the U.S. was unable to find allies for action.&nbsp; In a sad commentary on the Darfur catastrophes, in July 2005 Andrew Natsios of the U.S. Agency for International Development declared that the burning of villages in Darfur had all but ended&hellip;because there were no more villages left to burn.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>IN HIS WORDS</strong>:</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The ideal Sudanese woman &ldquo;should take care of herself, her children, her home, her reputation and her husband.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right">
January 1990</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What we now apply in Sudan is God&rsquo;s will.&nbsp; We will never satisfy humans to displease the Almighty God.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right">
September 1992</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We will not relinquish power unless through the barrel of a gun.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right">
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; September 30, 1995</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We respect human rights in Sudan&hellip; Perhaps our understanding of human rights differs from your government&rsquo;s.&rdquo;&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right">
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To U.S. Ambassador Don Petterson, November 10, 1992</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right">
-David Wallechinsky</p>
2019-04-12T13:42:54-07:00860502http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/trump-cancels-sanctions-against-iran-and-venezuela?news=860502U.S. and the WorldTrump Cancels Sanctions Against Iran and Venezuela<p>
In a move that caught many by surprise, U.S. President Donald Trump cancelled all economic sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. In a tweet, Trump said, &ldquo;Iran and Venezuela have met the requirements for restarting business with us.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Because he did not elaborate, it was left to Iran&rsquo;s foreign ministry spokesperson, Bahram Ghasemi, to explain the sudden change. &ldquo;We offered Trump land to build a residential tower in Tehran and a second one in Isfahan with a promise that the tenants would not be allowed to change the buildings&rsquo; names from Trump Tower for ten years upon threat of death. We also turned over two large clothing businesses to Ivanka Trump with the right to manufacture and market hijabs and chadors and granted her husband a trademark to produce cannabis products with the name Hindu Kushner.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Impressed by Iran&rsquo;s success in dealing with Trump, Venezuelan dictator Nicol&aacute;s Maduro offered Trump, free of charge, the right to construct Trump Towers in Caracas, Maracaibo, Valencia, Barquisimeto and Maracay. Going Iran one better, Maduro added a painting of Trump to the golden dome of Caracas&rsquo; Federal Legislative Palace. He also nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, The Genius Hall of Fame and a Golden Globes award in the category of his choice.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Trump&rsquo;s decision was met with undisguised joy by the CEOs of ExxonMobil, Valero Energy, Schlumberger Drilling, Halliburton and Chevron, who noted in a joint statement that, coincidentally, Venezuela and Iran have the first and fourth largest oil reserves in the world.</p>
<p align="right">
David Wallechinsky</p>
<p align="right">
(satire)</p>
2019-02-25T18:16:55-08:00860501http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/many-countries-recognize-nancy-pelosi-as-interim-us-president?news=860501U.S. and the WorldMany Countries Recognize Nancy Pelosi as Interim U.S. President<p>
Having declared the election of Saddam Hussein look-alike Nicol&aacute;s Maduro as president of Venezuela tainted and illegitimate, many countries in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere recognized the leader of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Barack Obama look-alike Juan Guaid&oacute;, as the nation&rsquo;s interim president.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;This got us thinking,&rdquo; said Donald Tusk, president of the council of the European Union. &ldquo;Are there other national leaders whose elections were illegitimate? Of course, we all thought immediately of the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. His victory, in an election he lost by almost three million votes, appears to have been the result of an unconstitutional conspiracy with a foreign power.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The leaders of Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Canada, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay and Costa Rica all declared that they would withdraw their support from Donald Trump as the U.S. president and would instead recognize Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as the legitimate interim president of the United States.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why should we treat the United States differently than we do Venezuela?&rdquo; asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel? She added that it was time for Trump to &ldquo;do the right thing and call for new elections.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S&aacute;nchez told reporters, &ldquo;We are working for the return of full democracy in the United States: human rights, fair elections, and no more imprisonment of children.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Trump has retained some supporters in the international community. Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a statement saying that &ldquo;Donald Trump is our man in Washington. We will continue to support him financially and in other ways.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right">
David Wallechinsky</p>
<p align="right">
(satire)</p>
2019-02-04T13:00:06-08:00860466http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/trump-and-iran-the-big-winner-is-vladimir-putin?news=860466U.S. and the WorldTrump and Iran: The Big Winner is Vladimir Putin<p>
As analysts try to determine who were the big winners and losers in President Donald Trump&rsquo;s decision pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, most of them seem to have overlooked one of the biggest winners of all&hellip;Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin gained a triple victory.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
1. Trump drove a deeper wedge between the United States and the other NATO nations. This is one of Putin&rsquo;s major goals.</p>
<p>
2. Trump demonstrated to other national rulers, such as Kim Jong-un of North Korea, that the United States cannot be trusted to stick to agreements it has made. This is just what Putin has been trying to tell people around the world.</p>
<p>
3. Because Russia is part of the Iran nuclear deal, it moves Putin closer to Germany, France, United Kingdom&hellip;and Iran.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
We do not know whether Trump, in withdrawing from the deal, was consciously promoting Putin&rsquo;s agenda or just blind to the implications of his own actions.</p>
<p align="right">
-David Wallechinsky</p>
2018-05-10T17:02:19-07:00860428http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/oscars-2018-foreign-language-films-part-threethe-best-of-the-non-nominees?news=860428U.S. and the WorldOscars 2018: Foreign Language Films Part Three—The Best of the Non-Nominees<p>
As I mentioned previously, I saw 89 of the 92 entries to the Foreign Language category for the Academy Awards. So many of the films that did not make the final cut of five nominees were excellent films and worth seeing that&rsquo;s it is frustrating to see them pass by without more recognition. I would like to call attention to at least some of the most noteworthy non-nominees.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Bulgaria&mdash;Glory </strong>(<em>Slava)</em></p>
<p>
I first saw this film on an Air France flight. You don&rsquo;t get a lot of Bulgarian films shown on non-Bulgarian airlines, so you know there&rsquo;s something special and universal about <em>Glory</em>&rsquo;s send-up of corrupt government officials, cynical public relations employees and even investigative reporters.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Tsanko Petrov is a stuttering railroad linesman who lives alone with his pet rabbits. One morning, while checking the tracks, he comes upon a large pile of dumped cash. Instead of grabbing it and keeping it for himself, Tsanko contacts the authorities. It so happens that this event coincides with a corruption scandal hitting the Department of Transportation. The department&rsquo;s PR chief, Julia Staikova, sees a chance to distract attention from the scandal by making a big deal of honoring Tsanko on television. His prize is a cheap digital watch. Just before the live coverage begins, Julia badgers Tsanko into removing his old-fashioned watch, which she tucks away for safekeeping.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
As soon as the coverage is finished, Julia loses interest in Tsanko and his watch, which was a keepsake passed on to him by his father. The watch brand is called Slava, or Glory; thus, the double-meaning title. Tsanko tries desperately to retrieve his watch, but Julia has already moved on to other schemes, including getting pregnant before she runs out of&hellip;time.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>Glory</em> was directed by a married couple, Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov. I had the pleasure of spending time with Valchanov and screenwriter Decho Taralezhkov before moderating a question and answer session with them at a screening arranged by European Film Promotion. I asked Valchanov what it was like collaborating with his wife. He replied, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s easy. She directs the film and I do the media interviews.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Slovenia&mdash;The Miner </strong>(<em>Rudar</em>)</p>
<p>
This was another film for which I moderated the Q&amp;A for a press and Academy showing, allowing me a couple hours to get know director Hanna Slak while <em>The Miner </em>was screening. Before going into the film itself, I have to say that one thing she said made a great impression on me. Speaking of the time when communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, she observed, &ldquo;Our new leaders and Western advisors told us they would bring us democracy, but what they really brought us was just capitalism.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>The Miner</em> was inspired by a deeply disturbing true incident. In the film, miner Alija Ba&scaron;ić, played by Croatian actor Leon Lučev, is ordered to examine an abandoned coal mine shaft and to report that nothing is there so that the mine can be closed and blocked up. But when Ba&scaron;ić penetrates deeper into the shaft, he discovers that parts of the mine have already been blocked. Digging his way through, he finds skeletons and bones&mdash;hundreds of them. When he reports this to his boss, he&rsquo;s told to let it alone and file his report without this information. So Ba&scaron;ić tells the police and then the press. But clearly, he has dug up&mdash;literally&mdash;a chapter in Slovenian history that the majority of Slovenians do not want to hear about. Who are these people, who apparently were murdered soon after the end of World War II?</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
As a boy, Ba&scaron;ić emigrated from near Srebrenica in Bosnia. After he left, his entire family was massacred by Bosnian Serbs. When, in the mine, he finds female hair, he is doubly haunted by the memories of his beloved sister. He stubbornly contends that even if the remains can&rsquo;t be identified, they were still human beings and they deserve a proper burial.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Slak worked with the real miner, Mehmedalija Alić, and helped him write his memoir. In real life, since 2009, more than 1,400 of the unknown victims have been exhumed from the mine and buried in a cemetery. This is a moving story, and I hope that, somehow, more people get to see it.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Switzerland&mdash;The Divine Order </strong>(<em>Die g&ouml;ttliche Ordnung</em>)</p>
<p>
It&rsquo;s hard to believe, but until 1971, Swiss women did not have the right to vote. In 1959, Swiss men voted 2-1 to deny women the vote. There was even a women&rsquo;s group formed that year called the Federation of Swiss Women against Women&#39;s Right to Vote.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Written and directed by Petra Volpe, <em>The Divine Order</em> deals with the 1971 referendum to reverse this prohibition, told from the point-of-view of Nora (Marie Leuenberger), an everyday housewife with two young sons, living in a village. She has never questioned her submissive role in rural Switzerland&rsquo;s male-dominated society. But when her husband refuses to allow her to take a job, which is his legal right, something starts to stir inside her. Add to this, her niece is sent to prison for trying to run away with her boyfriend without her father&rsquo;s permission, and Nora has had enough. She and her sister and an older woman who is angry because she lost her restaurant when her husband died, begin a campaign to support the vote for women&rsquo;s suffrage. This eventually leads to a <em>Lysistrata</em>-like women&rsquo;s strike.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Except for the obvious climax of the vote referendum itself, for me the highlight of <em>The Divine Order</em> comes when the three women join a march in Zurich and are exposed to a more open atmosphere than they are used to. They wander into a New Age seminar to teach women to feel comfortable with their bodies and their sexuality. They are given mirrors to study their vaginas and learn to love them. The Swedish moderator explains that vaginas come in different kinds, like bunny, butterfly and tiger. Although this scene is amusing, there is a serious aspect in that it exposes how isolated the village women have been. Nora, for example, has never had an orgasm.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
There is never any doubt where this story is going, but it makes you feel good anyway. Because of Switzerland&rsquo;s decentralized government, parts of the country continued to allow only men to vote. In fact, the men of one half-canton, Appenzell Innerrhoden, held out until 1989, when the Swiss Supreme Court finally ruled that women&rsquo;s suffrage was a national right. By coincidence, the theater in Los Angeles where I saw <em>The Divine Order</em> was one block away from a Swiss pastry shop. Naturally, I stopped in, and I found myself sitting next to an elderly couple originally from Switzerland who had also just seen the film. The man confirmed this development because he grew up, in fact, in Appenzell Innerrhoden.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Slovakia&mdash;The Line </strong>(<em>Ciara</em>)</p>
<p>
<em>The Line </em>is a fast-paced crime thriller that takes place on the border of Slovakia and Ukraine just as Slovakia is about to join the European Union. The region has for years been a smuggling center with many levels of criminal gangs. Now that the new political situation will institute stricter border controls, the old criminal hierarchies might be turned upside-down&hellip;or not.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The title, <em>The Line</em>, doesn&rsquo;t refer to just the line between Slovakia and Ukraine, but also to the moral line each person creates that he or she will not cross. Adam Krajnak (Tom&aacute;&scaron; Ma&scaron;tal&iacute;r) runs a cigarette smuggling business. He&rsquo;s willing to expand to engage in people smuggling, as long as the smuggled people are refugees seeking a better life. But he refuses to traffic in methadrine or narcotics. This does not sit well with Ukrainian gangster Krull or with some of Adam&rsquo;s employees, such as Luka, who is desperate to buy his son out of prison because the young man fears he is about to be killed.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
There is a lot more going on in <em>The Line</em> and quite a cast of interesting characters, including innocent Ivor, who wants to marry Adam&rsquo;s daughter, and Adam&rsquo;s crime matriarch mother, Anna, played by the great veteran actress Em&iacute;lia V&aacute;&scaron;&aacute;ryov&aacute;, who starred in last year&rsquo;s Slovak entry, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/blog/allgov-blogs/academy-awards-2017foreign-language-films?post=37955"><em>Eva Nov&aacute;</em></a>. V&aacute;&scaron;&aacute;ryov&aacute; is so famous that her 60-year filmography has its own <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Em%C3%ADlia_V%C3%A1%C5%A1%C3%A1ryov%C3%A1_filmography">Wikipedia page</a>.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
This an extremely entertaining film with high-end production values all-around from script to casting, to acting, to cinematography, etc.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
I had the honor of spending time with producer Wanda Adam&iacute;k Hrycov&aacute; and her father, veteran actor Andrej Hryc, who plays the villainous local police chief. Although Hryc has made his living primarily playing villains, he was proud to point out that he dubbed the voice of Fred Flintstone from English into Slovak, and, yes, &ldquo;yabadabadoo&rdquo; is the same in both languages.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Cambodia&mdash;First They Killed My Father</strong></p>
<p>
This is the third time in six years that Cambodia has entered a film about the nightmare of the Khmer Rouge period (1975-1979), during which an estimated 1,700,000 Cambodians were killed. Although Rithy Panh&rsquo;s <em>The Missing Picture</em> earned a nomination, I thought the best of the three was <em>Lost Loves</em>, in which Kauv Southeary, one of the survivors, wrote the script and played her own mother in the movie.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
However, <em>First They Killed My Father</em>, written and directed by Angelina Jolie, is a worthy addition to the sub-genre. Based on the 2000 memoir of survivor Loung Ung, the tragedy and horror is seen from the point-of-view of Loung, who is the five-year-old daughter of a military policeman when the Khmer Rouge sweep into the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Eventually she is separated from her parents (who are killed) and placed in a labor camp for children. At the age of eight, she is deemed old enough to be trained to become a soldier. It is this section of the film that I found most impressive because it portrays in detail the process of indoctrination.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
I have read several critical reviews of <em>First They Killed My Father </em>which, I suspect, were written by people who were blinded by Angelina Jolie&rsquo;s celebrity and might have seen the film more positively if it had been directed by a debut director. I visited Cambodia in 1988. No one I spoke with brought up the subject of the Khmer Rouge atrocities, but whenever I asked about it, it turned out that every person I met had lost at least one immediate family member. I encountered an entire nation experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. I recommend watching <em>First They Killed My Father</em> because it&rsquo;s a well-made film about a subject we shouldn&rsquo;t forget and one which should always serve as a warning that this could happen in other countries.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Iraq&mdash;Reseba: The Dark Wind </strong>(<em>Reseaba</em>)</p>
<p>
Based, unfortunately, on real events, <em>The Dark Wind</em> follows the story of Pero and Reko, members of the Yazidi religious minority in northern Iraq, who are a loving couple engaged to be married. Reko is a security guard at a U.S. oilfield. In August 2014, Islamic State fighters invaded the Yazidi region, murdering the men and older women and kidnapping the younger ones. In the film, Pero is taken away and sold to the highest bidder in a slave market. Reko risks his own life to find Pero and save her. With the aid of female fighters of the Kurdish resistance, Reko finds Pero and brings her home, which, by this time, is a large refugee camp.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Pero is utterly traumatized, and even when her family and Reko appear to coax her back to a fragile state of comfort, she has flashbacks that leave her screaming. Then she discovers that she&rsquo;s pregnant as a result of rape. Her family brings her to Yazidi religious leaders, who cleanse her spiritually and declare her an acceptable member of the community. But Rezo&rsquo;s father considers Pero shameful, damaged goods and refuses to allow his son to marry her. This puts Rezo in the position of either rejecting his cultural tradition of following your father&rsquo;s orders or continuing to carry out his plan to marry Pero.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Those who want to know more about the real Yazidi survivors of the Islamic State sex trade should check out <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Last-Girl-Captivity-Against-Islamic/dp/1524760439"><em>The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State</em></a> by Nadia Murad; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Who-Escaped-ISIS-Story/dp/1501152335/"><em>The Girl Who Escaped ISIS: This Is My Story</em></a> by Farida Khalaf and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ash-Their-Faces-Yezidi-Islamic/dp/194486945X/"><em>With Ash on Their Faces: Yezidi Women and the Islamic State</em></a> by Cathy Otten.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Turkey&mdash;Ayla: The Daughter of War </strong>(<em>Ayla</em>)</p>
<p>
The term &ldquo;tearjerker&rdquo; usually refers to films that artificially manipulate our emotions. I saw <em>Ayla: The Daughter of War</em> on the opening night of the Asian World Film Festival in Culver City, California. Each seat was provided with a handkerchief, and with good reason: this film is a legitimate tearjerker.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The effects of the tragic Korean War of 1950-1953 are still being felt 65 years later, as seen by the tentative rapprochement between South and North Korea during the recent 2018 Winter Olympics. A little-known aspect of this war is that Turkey sent a total of 15,000 soldiers in support of South Korea and its U.S. allies.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
One of these soldiers is Sergeant S&uuml;leyman Dilbirliği (İsmail Hacıoğlu). He and the other members of his brigade have barely settled in when they come under heavy attack from the North Koreans. In the wake of the battle, the Turkish troops enter a village where everyone has been killed; everyone that is except a five-year-old girl holding onto the hand of her dead mother. It&rsquo;s worth noting that it is never determined which side is responsible for this massacre. S&uuml;leyman and his comrades save the child and, with the eventual permission of their superiors, both Turkish and American, adopt her as their mascot and try to teach her the Turkish language. Since she is traumatized and unable to speak, they name her Ayla, which is Turkish for moon, because of her round face. When Ayla recovers enough to start speaking, she calls S&uuml;leyman &ldquo;Papa.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
They go through many adventures together, but the time comes when S&uuml;leyman is sent back to Turkey. Ayla is put into a school with other war orphans, but it&rsquo;s still a painful separation. S&uuml;leyman promises Ayla that he will return and adopt her, but, alas, despite his desperate attempts to return to South Korea, he is never able to do so. For his entire life, he is haunted by his failure to fulfill his promise to Ayla.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Sixty years later, journalists in Turkey and South Korea discovered that Ayla had been given a Korean name&mdash;Kin Eun-ja&mdash;and they tracked her down. Now a 65-year-old widow working as a janitor at a daycare center, she had never forgotten S&uuml;leyman. Flown to Seoul, S&uuml;leyman, now 84 years old, was finally reunited with Ayla.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
After the screening at the Asian World Film Festival, director Can Ulkay and numerous others associated with the film came to the front to talk about the film and answer questions. When someone asked what became of Ayla, Ulkay said, &ldquo;She&rsquo;s right here,&rdquo; and asked her to join them in front of the audience. I have been going to the movies since I was four years old, and I have never witnessed such a dramatic moment. As the audience members collectively gasped in surprise, a shy, elderly woman dressed in traditional Korean clothing walked to center stage. When she was asked about S&uuml;leyman, Kim Eun-ja, apparently knowing that S&uuml;leyman Dilbirliği was in ill health back in Turkey, began to cry.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Later, one of the film&rsquo;s media coordinators, Pia Pinar Ercan, told me that Ayla and S&uuml;leyman were invited to visit the set during the film&rsquo;s production. The crew happened to be filming a scene where Ayla draws a picture of her family. Mother&mdash;dead; brother&mdash;dead. Papa&hellip;and she points to S&uuml;leyman. The real Ayla and S&uuml;leyman both began sobbing, as did most of the crew, and the director ordered a break.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
S&uuml;leyman Dilbirliği died six weeks after the showing at the Asian World Film Festival.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Germany&mdash;In the Fade </strong>(<em>Aus dem Nichts</em>)</p>
<p>
Fatih Akin&rsquo;s <em>In the Fade </em>won the Golden Globes award for best foreign language film, and Diane Kruger won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. Kruger plays Katja, to whom we are introduced during her wedding in a prison with Kurdish Nuri, who is serving a term for drug dealing. Flash forward and they are happily married with a wiseacre six-year-old son named Rocco. Nuri and Katja run a travel agency and tax return business in a Turkish neighborhood in Hamburg, and they are doing well financially.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Katja goes out with a girlfriend, leaving Rocco at the office with Nuri. When she returns, she discovers that someone has bombed the office, killing her husband and their son. The authorities assume that the attack is connected with Nuri&rsquo;s drug-dealing past or maybe political conflicts in the Turkish/Kurdish community.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Katja however, recalls that upon leaving the office, she encountered a young white woman whom she admonished for failing to lock her bicycle. Katja is convinced that the real murderers are racist Neo-Nazis.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Katja is not a heroic heroine. She is a drug-taker and, left to her own devices, something of a low-life. Finally, she enters a bathtub and slashes her wrists. As the water turns red, her phone rings. It&rsquo;s her lawyer informing her that the police have arrested and charged a Neo-Nazi couple, the M&ouml;llers, for the murder.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Act two of the film is a prolonged and maddening trial. Despite the fact that the M&ouml;llers are obviously guilty, they are acquitted because of &ldquo;reasonable doubt.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
This leads to act three: Katja&rsquo;s decision to seek revenge by taking the law into her own hands.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The unfortunate English-language title, In the Fade, comes from a song by Queens of the Stone Age. According to Akin, the German title is untranslatable. The literal translation is &ldquo;Out of Nothing&rdquo; or &ldquo;Out of the Blue.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Paraguay&mdash;The Gold Seekers (</strong><em>Los Buscadores</em>)</p>
<p>
Thank you, Paraguay, for entering a comedy. The premise of <em>The Gold Seekers </em>is that during Paraguay&rsquo;s disastrous 1864-1870 &ldquo;Great War,&rdquo; which led to the deaths of almost 70% of the population through fighting or disease, many people buried treasure, some of them of legendary value. Manu is a teenager who does his share to support his struggling family by delivering newspapers by bicycle. Manu&rsquo;s grandfather, rendered mute by a stroke, gives Manu a book in which is slipped a map, presumably leading to buried treasure. Manu enlists the aid of his best friend, Fito, and longtime buried treasure aficionado Don Elio. Their quest for the second half of the map leads them to raid a grave. They conclude that the treasure is buried on the grounds of the embassy of an African country. Their attempt to gain access to the embassy leads them to either struggle against or confide in a series of comic characters. <em>The Gold Seekers </em>does touch upon serious issues, such as urban poverty and the legacy of the war, also known as The War of the Triple Alliance. But it is, thank goodness, basically a heist comedy.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Palestine&mdash;Wajib (Duty)</strong></p>
<p>
Although <em>Wajib </em>does have a plot, I was most taken by this comic-drama&rsquo;s setup: before Palestinian weddings, it is traditional for the invitations to be delivered in person. Because the mother of the bride-to-be scandalously ran away to the United States some years back, it&rsquo;s left to father Abu, a well-liked retired teacher who continues to tutor, to do the deliveries. He convinces his son, Abu Shadi, who is now an architect in Italy, to return to Palestine and help him. Father and son are played by Mohammad Bakri and Saleh Bakri, who really are father and son, so their interactions are smooth and natural. Written and directed by Annemarie Jacir, the story takes place in Nazareth in Israel. As Abu and Saleh roam around town, they encounter a wide range of relatives and old friends, both Christian and Muslim. Along the way, they argue about politics, exile versus staying, and living in a country ruled by Jews.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>India&mdash;Newton</strong></p>
<p>
Newton Kumar is an idealistic, everything-according-to-the-book government employee who volunteers to oversee Election Day in the remote Dandakaranya forest in central India, where Maoist rebels have threatened to disrupt the vote. There are only 76 registered voters in his precinct, and they&rsquo;re hard to find. Accompanied by comic-relief election worker Malko Netam, a local indigenous teacher, and a contingent of the Central Reserve Police Force, led by Commander Aatma Singh, Newton insists on setting up shop for voting in an abandoned schoolhouse. No voters show up. Aatma Singh tries to convince Newton to give it up and let him and his men gather votes their way, while Malko explains to Newton that the central government has no relevance to the lives of the local Gond people. But stubborn Newton will not be swayed.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
When a television crew arrives to record this shining example of Indian democracy at work, everyone is forced to snap into action in support of the election. Locals are rounded up and election procedures are explained to them. The problem is that the local people have never heard of any of the candidates or the parties they represent. And they are worried about the reprisals the Maoist Naxals, who are promoting a boycott of the election, might bring down upon them. It is the local chief, who is wise enough to find a solution.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Greece&mdash;Amerika Square </strong>(<em>Plateia Amerikis</em>)</p>
<p>
<em>Amerika Square </em>is one of the better films dealing with the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe. It portrays two friends, one of whom is an anti-immigrant racist, while the other is sympathetic to the refugees who are streaming into their neighborhood. At the same time, it introduces us to some of the immigrants. Although some have criticized director Yannis Sakaridis for not developing the immigrants more fully, he has certainly done a better job than the Italian documentary <em>Fire at Sea</em>, which was honored last year with a best documentary Oscar nomination despite failing to portray any immigrants as full human beings.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Nako, an unemployed 40-year-old living with his parents, doesn&rsquo;t like the fact that immigrants from African and Muslim countries have settled into the square that he has known since he was a child. His only real friend&mdash;from growing up since childhood in the same apartment building&mdash;is Billy, a tattoo artist. Billy takes a liking to Tereza, an African nightclub singer and chooses to rescue her from her gangster &ldquo;protector&rdquo; and help her escape from Greece.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Nako, meanwhile, bakes poison into bread and leaves the loaves in places that he thinks poor and homeless people will find them. We follow some of the people who pick up and eat the loaves. Nako is satisfied with his work, until the wrong person eats one of his creations.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Colombia&mdash;Guilty Men </strong>(<em>Pariente</em>)</p>
<p>
<em>Guilty Men </em>may be a film from Colombia, but at its heart, it has all the elements of a classic western: violence, a romantic subplot, comic relief and beautiful scenery. Director Iv&aacute;n Gaona chose to use non-professional locals from his hometown of G&uuml;epsa, Santander, and even used their real names for the characters.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Willington is a trucker who moonlights as a DJ at weddings and other occasions. He still has a crush on his ex-girlfriend, Mariana, who is engaged to Willington&rsquo;s cousin, Ren&eacute;, and is pregnant. The story is set in 2005, a period of transition because the right-wing paramilitary group that has been ruling the area is supposed to be in the process of being demobilized. However, the film opens with a night scene in which villagers, driven by Willington, are scheduled to hand over protection money to the &ldquo;paras.&rdquo; But something goes wrong; the local friends commit murder; and then they have to decide what to do with the money they are left holding.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
As unsolved robberies proliferate, and internecine problems develop, it becomes clear that, unlike in traditional Hollywood westerns, the various characters are not all good or all bad.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Some elements of <em>Guilty Men</em> are difficult for a non-Colombian audience to understand, but this is an exciting, well-produced film. Semi-comic relief? At one point, the characters debate whether they would be less criminal, and different people in general, if they had been raised on norte&ntilde;a music instead of ranchera music. After listening to the arguments from both sides, Willington speaks up. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he concludes, &ldquo;we&rsquo;d be just the same; we&rsquo;d just listen to different music.&rdquo;</p>
<p align="right">
-David Wallechinsky</p>
<p align="right">
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/oscars-2018-foreign-language-films-part-onebad-films-and-obscenities?news=860425">Oscars 2018: Foreign Language Films Part One&mdash;Bad Films and Obscenities</a> (by David Wallechinsky)</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/oscars-2018-foreign-language-films-part-twothe-5-nominees?news=860427">Oscars 2018: Foreign Language Films Part Two&mdash;The 5 Nominees</a> (by David Wallechinsky)</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
2018-03-02T23:33:33-08:00860427http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/oscars-2018-foreign-language-films-part-twothe-5-nominees?news=860427U.S. and the WorldOscars 2018: Foreign Language Films Part Two—The 5 Nominees<p>
This year a record 92 countries entered films in the foreign language category of the Academy Awards. As I mentioned in <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/oscars-2018-foreign-language-films-part-onebad-films-and-obscenities?news=860425">Part One</a>, I saw 89 of these films. I would recommend many of the non-nominees, and I will get to these in Part Three. The nominees themselves are certainly of interest, so here are my opinions.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Hungary&mdash;On Body and Soul </strong>(<em>Testr&ouml;l &eacute;s l&eacute;lekr&ouml;l</em>)</p>
<p>
As someone who wrote a short novel subtitled <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Boy-Calhoun-County-Tennessee/dp/1946025070/"><em>A Tale from the Fringe of Reality</em></a>, it&rsquo;s not surprising that I would be attracted to a film about two people who discover that each night they share the same dream. Endre is the financial director of a slaughterhouse and M&aacute;ria is the newly-hired quality control inspector. Endre seems resigned that his life is not what he hoped it might have been. M&aacute;ria is extremely shy, socially awkward and obsessive-compulsive.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
One day it&rsquo;s discovered that someone has stolen a vial of bovine sex stimulant. The police are called in, as is a corporate psychiatrist who interviews each slaughterhouse employee. In the course of his interview, Endre describes a recurring dream in which he is a stag, with a doe nearby, in a quiet, snow-covered forest. When M&aacute;ria gets her turn, she describes the same dream, but from the doe&rsquo;s point-of-view. The psychiatrist assumes they are playing a prank on her, but when she calls them together, Endre and M&aacute;ria are stunned to discover their shared unconscious.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The painfully awkward and touching path that Endre and M&aacute;ria follow to try to come together is contrasted with the brutal and gory daily work at the slaughterhouse.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
After watching <em>Of Body and Soul</em>, I couldn&rsquo;t help but think about the characters&rsquo; shared dreams as a metaphor for less literal shared dreams. Walking down the street in The Hague (which is where I happened to see the film), I looked at peoples&rsquo; faces and wondered how often we pass by strangers without realizing that this one or that one has the same hopes and dreams that we do.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Director Ildik&oacute; Enyedi&rsquo;s first feature film in 18 years, <em>Of Body and Soul </em>won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Lebanon&mdash;The Insult </strong>(<em>L&rsquo;insulte</em>)</p>
<p>
Lebanon has produced several excellent films in recent years, and now it has finally earned an Oscar nomination. In <em>The Insult</em>, a minor personal conflict smolders, grows and then explodes into a major national incident. Palestinian Kamel El Basha, who once spent two years in an Israeli prison for his political activism, won the best actor award at the 2017 Venice Film Festival for his portrayal, in <em>The Insult</em>, of Yasser Abdallah Salameh, a Palestinian refugee who works as a foreman for a construction crew that is fixing code violations in a Christian neighborhood. When he tells car garage owner Tony Hanna that he needs to make repairs in his house, Tony slams the door in his face. Out on the street, Yasser and his crew fix Toni&rsquo;s faulty drain pipe anyway, whereupon Toni smashes the new pipe. Yasser calls Tony a vulgar name, and to say that one thing leads to another is putting it mildly.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Yasser&rsquo;s boss persuades Yasser to visit Tony at work and apologize to him for the insult. But when Yasser arrives at the garage, Tony is watching a video of the anti-Palestinian right-wing Christian politician Bachir Gemayel, who was assassinated (by a rival Christian) in 1982. Yasser is quietly outraged. Tony tells him, &ldquo;I wish Ariel Sharon had wiped you all out.&rdquo; Yasser punches Tony, breaking two of his ribs, for which he is arrested.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Soon, a flamboyant Christian lawyer, Wajdi Wehbe, intervenes to represent Tony, while Wehbe&rsquo;s daughter, Nadine, volunteers to be Yasser&rsquo;s lawyer. Both sides bring in examples from recent Lebanese history of atrocities committed against their side.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
There are many interesting sidelights in <em>The Insult</em>. For example, the wives of both Yasser and Tony try to calm their spouses, but angry men don&rsquo;t listen to reasonable women.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Director and screenwriter Ziad Doueiri, who graduated from the University of California-San Diego, is Muslim. His co-screenwriter, Joelle Touma, is Christian. In September 2017, when he landed in Beirut after the Venice Film Festival, Doueiri was detained, apparently because his 2012 film, <em>West Beirut</em>, was partly filmed in Israel. He was released without charges.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Sweden&mdash;The Square</strong></p>
<p>
The winner of the Palme d&rsquo;Or at the Cannes Film Festival, <em>The Square</em> is a fascinating compilation of set pieces that are held together through the life of Christian (Claes Bang), the curator of an art museum that is trying to launch a new, experimental show. The problem with <em>The Square </em>is demonstrated by the difficulty its promoters have had settling on the best way to market the film. For example, the <a href="https://resizing.flixster.com/s5q_jcHcaDetEJRGm33Eb6dzL-I=/206x305/v1.bTsxMjUwOTIzMDtqOzE3NjA0OzEyMDA7MTk0NDsyODgw">poster</a> they chose portrays actor Terry Notary, who appears in only one scene. The film was originally pitched as a satire of the art world, and this is certainly the crux of the plot. But on a more personal level, it&rsquo;s really about an appealing intellectual who makes a series of terrible and easily avoidable bad decisions.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
There are two particularly amusing scenes that deal with Christian&rsquo;s interactions with art journalist and groupie Anne (Elisabeth Moss). In the first, Anne asks Christian to explain the description of a workshop she found on the museum&rsquo;s website: &ldquo;Exhibition, Non-Exhibition, an evening conversation that explores the dynamic of the exhibitable and the construction of publicness in the spirit of Robert Smithson&rsquo;s sites and non-sites, from non-sites to site, from non-exhibition to exhibition, what is the topos of exhibition non-exhibition in the crowded moments of mega-exhibition?&rdquo; Later, Anne and Christian have sex and argue about who should take charge of disposing of the semen-filled prophylactic.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
There&rsquo;s a lot going on in <em>The Square</em>. I&rsquo;ve read analyses that discuss the themes of trust, art world hypocrisy, compassion hypocrisy, etc. But, in the end, as I said, the message is that you can be intelligent, handsome, sophisticated and well-respected, and still make really stupid decisions&mdash;frequently.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
By the way, I&rsquo;m a fan of director Ruben &Ouml;stlund&rsquo;s previous film, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/academy-awards-2015best-f_b_6697146.html"><em>Force Majeure</em></a>.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Chile&mdash;A Fantastic Woman </strong>(<em>Una Mujer Fant&aacute;stica</em>)</p>
<p>
Marina (Daniela Vega) is a waitress and nightclub singer who has a loving relationship with Orlando, an older divorced man. The night of his birthday, Orlando suffers an aneurysm and falls down the stairs. Marina rushes him to a hospital, but he dies. This sudden shock would be tragic enough for Marina, but what follows is more complicated because Marina is transgender. Although Orlando&rsquo;s brother is sympathetic to Marina, Orlando&rsquo;s ex-wife, their son and the rest of his family are hostile. She is investigated by the police, told not to attend the funeral and has to find her own path to mourning. The filmmakers have gained a lot of credit for casting a transgender actress to play Marina, and Vega does a remarkable job.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Some foreign friends of mine have asked me why transgender issues are so often in the news in the United States considering that barely one-half of one percent of Americans self-identify as transgender. In a way, I suppose they serve as an inspiration for many other marginalized minority groups. At any rate, <em>A Fantastic Woman</em> portrays the obstacles faced by transgender women as well as any film has.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Russia&mdash;Loveless </strong><em>(Nelyubov)</em></p>
<p>
Nominated three years ago for <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-wallechinsky/academy-awards-2015best-f_b_6697146.html"><em>Leviathan</em></a>, director Andrey Zvyagintsev is back with another bleak portrayal about unhappy parents and an unhappy son. I&rsquo;d be curious to know what Zvyagintsev&rsquo;s parents think of his oeuvre. The winner of the London Film Festival, <em>Loveless </em>has been much-praised by critics. I understand, because it&rsquo;s well-made on all levels. However, it is just too bleak for my taste.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Boris and Zhenya are in the throes of an ugly divorce. Even though they have both found new partners, they still share an apartment. The victim of this extreme discord is their 12-year-old son, Alyosha. After overhearing a particularly violent argument and realizing that he is the product of an unplanned pregnancy, Alyosha disappears. Boris and Zhenya are forced to work together to locate their son, but instead of bringing them closer, it serves as yet another reason to hate each other. The police are too overwhelmed with other matters to be helpful, so the parents turn to a truly admirable nonprofit organization that specializes in searching for missing children. These well-organized volunteers contrast with the materialism and selfishness we are shown in the new Russia.</p>
<p align="right">
-David Wallechinsky</p>
<p align="right">
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/oscars-2018-foreign-language-films-part-onebad-films-and-obscenities?news=860425">Oscars 2018: Foreign Language Films Part One&mdash;Bad Films and Obscenities</a> (by David Wallechinsky)</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/oscars-2018-foreign-language-films-part-threethe-best-of-the-non-nominees?news=860428">Oscars 2018: Foreign Language Films Part Three&mdash;The Best of the Non-Nominees</a> (by David Wallechinsky)</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
2018-03-01T23:05:55-08:00860425http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/oscars-2018-foreign-language-films-part-onebad-films-and-obscenities?news=860425U.S. and the WorldOscars 2018: Foreign Language Films Part One—Bad Films and Obscenities<p>
This year a record 92 countries entered films in the foreign language category of the Academy Awards. I saw 90 of these films. Before commenting on individual films, here are a few observations.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Bad Films</strong></p>
<p>
Previously, I have only written about films I liked. But this year two of the foreign language entries were so ideologically offensive that I feel compelled to call attention to them.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The first is the Chinese entry, <em>Wolf Warrior 2</em>. A violent, super-patriotic action movie, it is the highest-grossing film in Chinese history. Rogue former special operations soldier Leng Feng finds himself in an unnamed African country when ruthless rebel forces and their white mercenary partners overrun government forces. I don&rsquo;t want to waste time going into the mundane plot, but suffice it to say that because the Africans are incapable of taking care of their own country, Leng and his fellow Chinese save them from themselves.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
I saw this film at a screening for the press and Academy and Golden Globe voters. Wu Jing, who wrote, directed, produced and starred in the film, answered questions after the two-hour film finally ended. I was so disgusted that I couldn&rsquo;t help but be the first audience member to raise my hand. I asked Wu if Chinese children, who attended the film in droves, would not come away with an extremely negative view of Africans. Wu said the story was about the Chinese heroes and the fact that it took place in Africa was not relevant. Afterwards, a couple audience members thanked me for my question, but they couldn&rsquo;t understand why Wu, an amiable sort, gave such a weak and foolish answer. But one must keep in mind that when a Chinese citizen who is as high-profile as Wu Jing travels abroad, he is being watched by government agents who will file a report about him when they all return to China. Wu, if he wants to avoid punishment, has no choice. By the way, Wu also said that his motto is that violence is only a good thing in movies, not in real life. Again, I doubt that that was message that Chinese children took away when they left the theater.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The other film that I found repulsive was <em>The Children of Genghis</em> from Mongolia. Once again, the underlying lesson for children is that Mongolians are incapable of taking care of themselves and they need foreigners, in this case an American aid worker, to save them from themselves&mdash;by bringing in helmets to protect child horseback riders. And then there&rsquo;s the worshipping of Genghis Khan, whom the film treats like a glorious national role model. In fact, he was a bloodthirsty, genocidal maniac who ordered the slaughter of millions of innocent civilians, including children.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Films Banned in their Own Country</strong></p>
<p>
Give credit to the Motion Picture Academy for allowing the entry of films that are not allowed to be shown in their country of origin. The two most notable examples come from Venezuela and Syria.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The Venezuelan film, <em>El Inca</em>, is a biography of the boxer Edwin Valero, who was world champion in the super featherweight and lightweight divisions and never lost a professional fight. If this was an American movie, Alexander Leterni, who plays Valero, would be a favorite for an Oscar nomination. Unfortunately, Valero&rsquo;s legacy includes the fact that he murdered his wife in 2010 and then committed suicide in jail the next day.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But the real reason <em>El Inca </em>was pulled from the theaters in Venezuela after only two weeks is that Valero was a friend of strongman Hugo Ch&aacute;vez and actually fought with a color tattoo of Ch&aacute;vez on his chest. At the showing I attended, which was presented by TheWrap website, director Ignacio Castillo Cottin and producer Nathalie Sar-Shalom explained that they were able to have the injunction against the film overturned. However, the Venezuelan Supreme Court reinstated the ban, pending a &ldquo;quick&rdquo; final decision that never came.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The Motion Picture Academy approved a Syrian film commission in exile, which chose a documentary, <em>Little Gandhi</em>, to represent their country. Syria has descended into such a horrible war zone that few people remember that it played a part in the Arab Spring of 2011. <em>Little Gandhi</em> tells the story of one of the leaders of this movement, Ghiyath Matar, who advocated non-violent resistance to the regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad. Matar was eventually tortured and murdered by the Assad regime. Syrian-American director Sam Kadi could not visit Syria. So, he hired a cameraman to interview two old friends of Matar (while sniper fire could be heard in the background) and directed the interview by Skype from a hotel room in Istanbul. It took six months to smuggle the footage out of Syria. I don&rsquo;t want to hear any American directors complain about the obstacles they&rsquo;ve faced making their films.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Most Overused Word by Subtitle Translators</strong></p>
<p>
Last year I noted that subtitle writers were obsessed with the words &ldquo;moron&rdquo; and &ldquo;dude.&rdquo; This year the most overused word, by far, was &ldquo;fuck.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s true that this word is also used in most Oscar-nominated American films. However, in the case of foreign-language films, I feel that this is a sign of laziness on the part of the subtitle translators. Despite my lack of knowledge of most languages, I can tell that the obscenities in the various original languages are much more varied and creative. Either English-language obscenities are limited or the translators just took the easy way out.</p>
<p align="right">
-David Wallechinsky</p>
<p align="right">
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/oscars-2018-foreign-language-films-part-twothe-5-nominees?news=860427">Oscars 2018: Foreign Language Films Part Two&mdash;The 5 Nominees</a> (by David Wallechinsky)</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/oscars-2018-foreign-language-films-part-threethe-best-of-the-non-nominees?news=860428">Oscars 2018: Foreign Language Films Part Three&mdash;The Best of the Non-Nominees</a> (by David Wallechinsky)</p>
2018-02-28T23:15:09-08:00860058http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/which-countries-have-been-killing-americans-the-trump-7-vs-the-rest-of-the-world?news=860058U.S. and the WorldWhich Countries have been Killing Americans? The Trump 7 vs. the Rest of the World <p>
These are the seven countries from which President Donald Trump halted entry to the United States: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Including all terrorist acts committed by terrorists who were foreign-born or whose parents were born abroad, the total number of Americans killed by terrorists from the Trump 7 is&hellip;zero.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
On the other hand, terrorists from other countries have killed 2,689 Americans. Here are some examples.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p style="margin-left:27.0pt;">
<strong>9/11 Attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Plane that Crashed in Pennsylvania</strong>&mdash;2,605 U.S. citizens (2001) (also 372 non-Americans)</p>
<p>
<strong>Saudi Arabia</strong>&mdash;15 hijackers</p>
<p>
<strong>United Arab Emirates</strong>&mdash;2 hijackers</p>
<p>
<strong>Egypt</strong>&mdash;1 hijacker</p>
<p>
<strong>Lebanon</strong>&mdash;1 hijacker</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Fort Hood Shootings</strong>&mdash;13 Americans killed (2009)</p>
<p>
<strong>Palestine</strong></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Boston Marathon Bombing</strong>&mdash;3 Americans killed (2013)</p>
<p>
<strong>Russia</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>Kyrgyzstan</strong></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Chattanooga Army Recruiting Center Shootings</strong>&mdash;5 Americans killed (2015)</p>
<p>
<strong>Kuwait</strong> (parents&mdash;<strong>Palestinian/Jordanian</strong>)</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>San Bernardino Health Center Shootings</strong>&mdash;14 Americans killed (2015)</p>
<p>
<strong>Pakistan </strong>(one of two raised in <strong>Saudi Arabia</strong>)</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Orlando Pulse Nightclub Shootings</strong>&mdash;49 killed (2016)</p>
<p>
<strong>Afghanistan </strong>(parents)</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Final Total </strong>(including shared responsibility)</p>
<p>
<strong>The Non-Trump 10 (2,689 killed):</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>Saudi Arabia</strong>&mdash;2,619</p>
<p>
<strong>United Arab Emirates</strong>&mdash;2,605</p>
<p>
<strong>Egypt</strong>&mdash;2,605</p>
<p>
<strong>Lebanon</strong>&mdash;2,605</p>
<p>
<strong>Afghanistan</strong>&mdash;49</p>
<p>
<strong>Palestine</strong>--18</p>
<p>
<strong>Pakistan</strong>&mdash;14</p>
<p>
<strong>Kuwait</strong>&mdash;5</p>
<p>
<strong>Russia</strong>&mdash;3 &nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Kyrgyzstan</strong>&mdash;3</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>The Trump 7 (0 killed)</strong>:</p>
<p>
<strong>Iran</strong>&mdash;0</p>
<p>
<strong>Iraq</strong>&mdash;0</p>
<p>
<strong>Libya</strong>&mdash;0</p>
<p>
<strong>Somalia</strong>&mdash;0</p>
<p>
<strong>Sudan</strong>&mdash;0</p>
<p>
<strong>Syria</strong>&mdash;0</p>
<p>
<strong>Yemen</strong>&mdash;0</p>
<p align="right">
-David Wallechinsky</p>
2017-01-29T21:01:09-08:00860004http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/trump-proceeds-with-development-of-luxury-resorts-tied-to-powerful-indonesian-political-figures-170101?news=860004U.S. and the WorldTrump Proceeds with Development of Luxury Resorts Tied to Powerful Indonesian Political Figures<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<meta content="noindex" name="robots" />
</p>
<p>
By Richard C. Paddock and Eric Lipton, New York Times</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
JAKARTA, Indonesia &mdash;One resort, planned as the largest in Bali, will overlook a spectacular Hindu temple. The other, in the verdant hills of West Java, will adjoin a theme park. The properties will be so luxurious, the <a href="http://www.trump.com/">Trump Organization</a> says, that even an impressive five-star rating will not do them justice.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Even as President-elect Donald Trump promises to end foreign business deals that could pose conflicts of interest, his company is moving ahead with two Indonesian projects that illustrate how tricky that pledge might be.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
None of the construction work to build or renovate structures at the Indonesian resorts has begun, but Trump has forged relationships with powerful political figures in <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3494">Indonesia</a>. That tangle of relationships includes an Indonesian business partner who aspires to high office; a powerful politician accused of trying to extort billions of dollars from a U.S. mining company; and Trump&rsquo;s new adviser on regulatory issues, Carl C. Icahn, a top shareholder in the mining company.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Trump&rsquo;s local partner on the resorts, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, is a billionaire media mogul. He ran for vice president of Indonesia in 2014 and is organizing a political party for another possible run at national office in 2019. If Hary or his party wins a major role in government, the potential conflicts could escalate significantly.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;You could have two world leaders that are business partners,&rdquo; said Richard W. Painter, who served as a White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration. &ldquo;It makes it almost impossible to conduct diplomacy in an evenhanded manner. That does not work.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Through the partnership with Hary, Trump has gained access to some of Indonesia&rsquo;s top political figures, including Setya Novanto, speaker of the House of Representatives, who was temporarily forced to surrender his leadership post because of corruption allegations in 2015.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Trump created the corporations that manage these projects in late June 2015, just a week after he declared his intention to run for president.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
On Wednesday, Trump accused the news media of exaggerating any potential conflicts presented by his business holdings.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a big deal; you people are making it a big deal, the business,&rdquo; Trump said. &ldquo;They all knew I had big business all over the place.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/where-is-the-money-going/the-clause-in-the-us-constitution-that-trump-as-president-would-violate-with-his-foreign-businesses-161204?news=859863">The Clause in the U.S. Constitution that Trump as President Would Violate with His Foreign Businesses</a> (by Richard Tofel, ProPublica)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/constitutional-violations-of-trumps-foreign-business-dealings-may-never-be-known-due-to-limited-disclosure-rules-161201?news=859849">Constitutional Violations of Trump&rsquo;s Foreign Business Dealings May Never Be Known Due to Limited Disclosure Rules</a> (by Derek Kravitz, ProPublica)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/5-trump-business-ties-that-pose-conflicts-for-the-president-elect-161128?news=859833">5 Trump Business Ties that Pose Conflicts for the President-Elect</a> (by Bernard Condon, Associated Press)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/with-no-ethics-rules-binding-us-presidents-trump-business-ventures-put-conflicts-of-interest-at-high-risk-161119?news=859790">With No Ethics Rules Binding U.S. Presidents, Trump Business Ventures Put Conflicts of Interest at High Risk</a> (by Bernard Condon, Associated Press)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/aclu-gears-up-to-fight-in-court-anticipated-unconstitutional-acts-by-a-president-trump-160718?news=859171">ACLU Gears Up to Fight in Court Anticipated &ldquo;Unconstitutional Acts&rdquo; by a President Trump</a> (by Bianca Bruno, Courthouse News Service)</p>
2017-01-01T14:20:07-08:00860003http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/us-program-to-seize-assets-stolen-by-corrupt-foreign-leaders-may-be-undermined-by-trumps-global-business-interests-170101?news=860003U.S. and the WorldU.S. Program to seize Assets Stolen by Corrupt Foreign Leaders May be undermined by Trump’s Global Business Interests<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<meta content="noindex" name="robots" />
</p>
<p>
By Leslie Wayne, New York Times</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
One would think that an iconic Michael Jackson &ldquo;Bad Tour&rdquo; glove, covered in Swarovski crystals and worn on his first solo tour, would rest in a place of honor, perhaps at the <a href="https://www.rockhall.com/">Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame</a> in Cleveland.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Hardly. The bejeweled glove is thousands of miles away in the oil-rich, deeply impoverished country of <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3544">Equatorial Guinea</a>. And the people of the West African nation, most of whom live on less than $2 a day, have paid dearly for it.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The glove, and its odd stewardship, embody the profound difficulties surrounding the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, a six-year effort by the United States to seize assets owned by kleptocrats &mdash; government officials who use their countries&rsquo; wealth to enrich themselves. In the most recent headline-grabbing case, the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-justice?detailsDepartmentID=573">Justice Department</a> is seeking to recover $1 billion that it says was stolen from <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3533">Malaysia</a>&rsquo;s sovereign wealth fund and used, among other things, to buy high-end real estate in the United States and finance the movie &ldquo;The Wolf of Wall Street.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
This is something that few other nations attempt. Now comes the hard part: returning the seized money to the people of the countries affected without enriching a kleptocrat all over again.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to see the funds disappear and go back to those who caused the harm,&rdquo; said Leslie R. Caldwell, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department&rsquo;s criminal division.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Some $3 billion in assets, involving nations worldwide, have been frozen by the program &mdash; including a <a href="http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/unusual-news/us-kleptocracy-initiative-swoops-down-on-african-official-living-in-malibu-141014?news=854522">Malibu, California, mansion and a $500,000 Ferrari</a> (but not the white glove) owned by a member of Equatorial Guinea&rsquo;s ruling family, the Obiangs. The family&rsquo;s patriarch is so wealthy that he tops Queen Elizabeth II on lists of the global rich.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
This repatriation effort is getting started just as Donald Trump&rsquo;s election as president threatens to complicate the message of the kleptocracy initiative. Trump, a Republican, has promised to avoid potential <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/constitutional-violations-of-trumps-foreign-business-dealings-may-never-be-known-due-to-limited-disclosure-rules-161201?news=859849">conflicts of interest</a> between his business empire and his duties as commander in chief and has indicated he will come up with a plan before the inauguration.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Trump&rsquo;s actions will have special resonance for a program that goes after foreign leaders whose business and government positions are porous. There are worries that if Trump does not sufficiently distance his business and his family from politics, it will be tougher for the Justice Department to criticize foreign leaders who have become wealthy based on their government ties.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The election of Donald Trump might impede the commitment of the United States to fight kleptocracy,&rdquo; said Matthew C. Stephenson, a professor who teaches anti-corruption law at Harvard Law School. &ldquo;The political consequences are that it reduces U.S. leverage because of the perceived hypocrisy. The moral case is drastically undermined.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Tutu Alicante, executive director of <a href="http://www.egjustice.org/">EG Justice</a>, a Washington nonprofit that monitors corruption in Africa, said: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a perfect scenario for kleptocrats in Africa to point to someone in the White House. They will compare themselves to Donald Trump.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Representatives of both the Justice Department and Trump did not respond to requests for comment.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The Obiang case is the biggest to date and, for that reason, is being closely watched. It is also the rare time that the kleptocracy initiative has gone after such a senior officeholder. A member of the Obiang family bought many of his assets as part of a &ldquo;corruption fueled spending spree,&rdquo; according to the Justice Department.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Under an agreement with the department, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of Equatorial Guinea&rsquo;s president, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/dictator-of-the-month-teodoro-obiang-nguema-of-equatorial-guinea?news=843015">Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo</a>, has promised to give up valuables he amassed in the United States, ending years of litigation. His title is second vice president, with an official salary of around $100,000. His father came to power in a coup in 1979 and is the longest-serving African leader and president in the world, ruling with &ldquo;almost total control,&rdquo; according to a recent report from the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/independent-agencies/central-intelligence-agency-cia?agencyid=7293">CIA</a>. The son is seen as a possible heir apparent.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>&ldquo;Touching the Untouchables&rdquo;</em></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The Justice Department hailed its agreement with the younger Obiang as a significant step forward for its program. The idea is to create a charity in Equatorial Guinea funded by $30 million from the sale of his 15,000-square-foot Malibu oceanfront mansion, the Ferrari 599 and other assets, including additional Jackson memorabilia.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We are touching the untouchables,&rdquo; Caldwell said. &ldquo;We are saying that the U.S. financial system is not a safe haven for corruption.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The department has both a desire and an obligation to repatriate assets flowing through the U.S. banking system. The United States, along with 140 other countries, is a signatory to the U.N. <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CAC/">Convention Against Corruption</a>, an agreement requiring countries to hunt down the offshore money of corrupt officials and return it to the victimized countries. The <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/">World Bank</a> estimates that from $20 billion to $40 billion is stolen annually by corrupt public officials, mostly in poor and developing countries.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
So far only a small number of nations are actively pursuing kleptocracy cases &mdash; mainly the United States, Britain, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3469">Canada</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3548">Luxembourg</a> and <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3511">Switzerland</a>. This is in part because few countries have the resources to take on the complicated cases.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Ownership of the assets is often hidden by a web of shell companies. Offshore accounts created by sharp lawyers and accountants can be hard to trace. A court must determine whether other interested parties have valid claims to ownership and if the assets were bought with illicitly obtained money. Only then can the assets be seized and the money repatriated.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The corrupt assets that the Justice Department has tracked down have come from a laundry list of countries &mdash; <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3595">Nigeria</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3507">Ukraine</a> and <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3499">Uzbekistan</a> among them. In the case of Malaysia, money was also used to buy a $35 million jet, pay for gambling in Las Vegas and buy art by Van Gogh and Monet. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, whose movie &ldquo;The Wolf of Wall Street&rdquo; was produced by the company tied to the Malaysian case, has said he would return any funds that his charity or the movie received that turned out to have been stolen.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The kleptocracy initiative comes as efforts to combat the flow of illicit money of all sorts into the United States are expanding. The publicity surrounding the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/offshore-accounts-of-world-leaders-detailed-in-leaked-documents-160404?news=858591">Panama Papers</a> heightened global awareness of the secret offshore accounts held by public officials and the wealthy and put more officials on notice.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
In the largest case against a person, the Justice Department is seeking $850 million from Gulnara Karimova, the socialite daughter of the late president of Uzbekistan who goes by the nickname Googoosha. The Harvard-educated former model and pop singer is accused by the United States of accepting bribes to allow a Dutch telecom company to enter the Uzbek market. A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable said she was the &ldquo;the single most hated person&rdquo; in Uzbekistan and a &ldquo;greedy power hungry individual.&rdquo; After a falling out with her father in 2014, Karimova was placed under house arrest, where she remains today.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Three lawyers representing Uzbekistan in the Justice Department matter did not respond to requests for comment, nor did officials at the <a href="http://www.uzbekistan.org/">Uzbekistan Embassy</a> in Washington. In court filings, lawyers representing Uzbekistan argue that the United States has &ldquo;at best a minimal interest in the bribery and money-laundering scheme&rdquo; involving Karimova because &ldquo;the corruption alleged in the complaint is fundamentally an Uzbek matter.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Another big-ticket case involves Gen. Sani Abacha of Nigeria, who died nearly two decades ago. His case has wended through the courts since then. In play is $630 million from his estate that the United States says he and his cronies laundered through the U.S. financial system. The United States has gained access to $480 million and is in litigation over the rest.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Close behind is some $250 million caught in a legal battle between the United States and Pavlo Lazarenko, the former Ukrainian prime minister who fled his country in 1999 amid corruption charges and has sought political asylum in the United States ever since. Now living in California in modest circumstances, he was forced by the United States to give up his nearby 18,000-square-foot, 20-room mansion after a 2004 conviction for money laundering. He left federal prison in 2012 and is out of work.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Daniel Horowitz, Lazarenko&rsquo;s lawyer, said that there had been &ldquo;zero evidence of wrongdoing&rdquo; by Lazarenko and that &ldquo;the case is about the U.S. government wanting to keep the money.&rdquo; He described Ukraine as &ldquo;a place with no rules&rdquo; and added that &ldquo;80 percent of the world outside the United States and Europe has no rules.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to determine what is right and wrong,&rdquo; Horowitz said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>Limited Success</em></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The World Bank is tracking the offshore money of leaders toppled during the Arab Spring, including those of <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3471">Egypt</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3571">Libya</a> and <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3596">Tunisia</a>. Some money has been repatriated to the Tunisian treasury to help stabilize the country. In the cases of Libya and Egypt, the countries are so unstable and dangerous, though, that repatriation is impossible. An estimated $200 million in offshore assets of the Assad family of <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3590">Syria</a> and their associates were frozen by Switzerland, the <a href="https://europa.eu/european-union/index_en">European Union</a> and the United States</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
It is not just the United States that finds repatriation difficult. The global success rate is slim. The World Bank reports that of $2.623 billion in assets frozen by <a href="https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/">Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development c</a>ountries between 2006 and 2012, the most current statistics available, it was able to return only $423.5 million to victim countries, or just around a sixth of the money seized.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Asset recovery is highly contentious and difficult to negotiate,&rdquo; said Emile van der Does de Willebois, global lead for financial market integrity at the World Bank.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The victim country can say that this is our money, we need it and we want it back.&rdquo; But, he said, &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t just give back a blank check.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Equatorial Guinea shows why. Under an agreement with the Justice Department, $20 million from the sale of Teodoro Obiang&rsquo;s assets will be given to a charitable organization selected by the agency and Obiang. Another $10 million will be administered solely by the United States.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But the big question is whether the department can structure a charity so that the money is not controlled by the Obiangs or used to enhance their image and power. That is a tall order for Justice Department lawyers who are more accustomed to hunting down bad characters than to setting up offshore charities.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;This is a challenge and very different than what prosecutors are trained to do,&rdquo; said Stephenson, the Harvard professor.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Complicating matters in Equatorial Guinea is that there are almost no existing charities. That is largely because the Obiang family has clamped down on any organization that promotes democracy or challenges its rule.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;This won&rsquo;t be an easy process,&rdquo; said Alicante of EG Justice, which promotes human rights in that country. &ldquo;Unless the U.S. government stays alert, the money will disappear through corruption and we&rsquo;ll be back at square one.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The $30 million from the sale of Obiang&rsquo;s Malibu mansion, his Ferrari and assorted Jackson statues is in an escrow account controlled by the Justice Department. The Equatorial Guinean Embassy and Obiang&rsquo;s U.S. lawyers did not respond to several requests for comment. Caldwell, of the Justice Department, said plans for the repatriation of the Obiang money were still being made final under the terms of the court agreement.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
While the Justice Department heralded the Equatorial Guinea settlement, it was only a partial victory. It claimed that Obiang amassed more than $300 million in assets around the globe &ldquo;through corruption and money laundering.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Of that amount, the Justice Department had targeted $70 million in Obiang&rsquo;s U.S. assets and was outfoxed, ending up with only about half that amount. Obiang kept his $38 million Gulfstream jet flying around the world, only in locations where the United States lacked jurisdiction to seize it. That meant, though, that he was unable to have regular servicing performed on the aircraft, which has depressed its value &mdash; and made it less attractive to potential passengers.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
As for the Jackson glove, it was spirited out of the United States in defiance of a U.S. court order, according to prosecutors.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
French authorities have helped by seizing a multimillion-dollar fleet of Obiang&rsquo;s exotic cars, including a $2 million Bugatti Veyron and two $600,000 Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupes, a $380,000 Lamborghini Murci&eacute;lago and a $424,000 Bentley Azure. Obiang is scheduled to go on trial in Paris next week on corruption and money laundering charges after losing a bid in early December before the <a href="http://www.icj-cij.org/homepage/">International Court of Justice</a> to halt the proceedings.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
On Dec. 2, at the request of the Swiss, Dutch authorities seized Obiang&rsquo;s 250-foot, $100 million yacht, &ldquo;Ebony Shine,&rdquo; as it was about to sail to Equatorial Guinea, according to the Swiss publication L&rsquo;Hebdo. Obiang denied ownership of the yacht, saying that it belonged to his country&rsquo;s government. He has another yacht based in Tangier.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
As the Justice Department tries to figure out a repatriation strategy, there are examples of plans that have gone awry. In <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3480">Angola</a>, $64 million frozen by Swiss authorities was repatriated and earmarked for mine clearance and agricultural development. While some of the money went for hospitals and other local projects, an <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/open-society-justice-initiative">Open Society Justice Initiative</a> report found that there was little public accounting for a portion of the money, which never entered the Angolan economy and instead went to cover payments to a Swiss mine-removal company.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Andreas Ledergerber, a spokesman for the <a href="https://www.eda.admin.ch/washington">Swiss Embassy</a> in Washington, said that, despite criticism, the repatriated money &ldquo;contributed to the mine-removal process&rdquo; at the end of the Angola civil war, where anti-personnel mines remain a &ldquo;major danger to the population.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Switzerland also repatriated more than $500 million of seized Abacha money to Nigeria to be used for health, education, water and roads. Instead, the money disappeared into the country&rsquo;s general budget with no oversight, according to a World Bank report. And in Egypt, the tumultuous political situation caused many repatriation cases to be dropped.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
On the brighter side is <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3560">Kazakhstan</a>, where the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/bota-foundation">BOTA Foundation</a> was created with $115 million in seized money under an agreement among the United States, Switzerland and Kazakhstan. The foundation established in 2009 to help the country&rsquo;s poor is now held up as a model to emulate.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The foundation was able to operate without interference from the country&rsquo;s ruling elite and to fulfill its mandate successfully. A total of $79 million went for social service and education programs that helped an estimated 200,000 people. Even so, BOTA drew some criticism for administrative and startup costs that took about a third of the money and because it did not continue operating after the original money was spent.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>Challenge of Uzbekistan</em></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Some countries are so corrupt that repatriation may not even be possible, experts say. Uzbekistan may be one of them.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
A recent CIA report described Uzbekistan as being plagued by &ldquo;pervasive corruption.&rdquo; Its citizens, including children, are subject to &ldquo;government-compelled forced labor&rdquo; in the country&rsquo;s cotton fields, according to the report. It also found &ldquo;official complicity in human trafficking.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Yet Uzbekistan occupies a strategic location in Central Asia and on an important logistics supply route for troops in <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3436">Afghanistan</a>. That limits the extent to which the United States can challenge the country&rsquo;s ruling family.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The Justice Department&rsquo;s case focuses on Karimova, who was once seen as her father&rsquo;s successor until their falling out. She did not attend his funeral in September.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
While in favor, though, she was riding high. The former model, who is nearly 6 feet tall, was once quoted in <em>The New Yorker</em> publicly praising God for &ldquo;my height, my face, my features.&rdquo; She appeared in music videos, including one in which she is transported on a sports car that floats through the air to a secluded castle on a magical island. In others, she sings duets with G&eacute;rard Depardieu and Julio Iglesias.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
She designed a line of jewelry, perfume and clothing, although her 2011 show at New York&rsquo;s Fashion Week was <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/new-york-fashion-week-cancels-show-by-dictators-daughter?news=843255">canceled</a> amid protests over Uzbekistan&rsquo;s human rights violations. She served as the country&rsquo;s ambassador to <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3512">Spain</a> and representative to the United Nations in Geneva.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Karimova also faced investigations in Sweden, Switzerland and the United States over accusations of bribery and money laundering. Within her own country, she is considered a &ldquo;robber baron&rdquo; who would &ldquo;crush business people or anyone else who stands in her way,&rdquo; according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable. The United States was able to file charges because the $850 million in suspected bribes passed through the U.S. financial system on the way to accounts in Britain, Hong Kong, Latvia, Luxembourg and other places.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Sunshine Uzbekistan, a group of Uzbek human rights activists living in exile, has asked the Justice Department not to repatriate the money but to put it into a trust for use when conditions improve. Repatriating the money before that would mean it &ldquo;would disappear,&rdquo; the group said in a letter to the department. The group argues that a trust fund would provide an incentive for the country to improve its human rights record as a condition of getting the money.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The Justice Department is the last hope for the Uzbek people,&rdquo; Sanjar G. Umarov, founder of the coalition, said in an interview.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
A different set of issues complicates the efforts to return the Abacha money to Nigeria, a case that has dragged on for decades as various people have asserted claims on the money. As the courts have steadily dismissed those claims, the Justice Department has drawn closer to repatriating the money.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
A group called <a href="http://serap-nigeria.org/">SERAP</a>, which stands for the Socio-Economic Rights Accountability Project, has asked that the money to be given to a &ldquo;reliable U.S. or Nigerian charitable organization&rdquo; and not returned to the government.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;There is the hope that if the money is placed in the right hands it will be used more efficiently,&rdquo; said Alexander Sierck, a Washington lawyer and counsel to SERAP.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Many Nigerians say statements like that, however well intended, smack of colonialism. Instead, they say that the money was theirs in the first place and that the country&rsquo;s leaders &mdash; and not an outside person or group &mdash; should decide how it is spent. The Nigerian government agrees.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
This line of argument has become stronger as falling oil prices have hurt the country&rsquo;s economy and a new president has pledged to eradicate corruption.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
In May last year at an anti-corruption conference in London, Nigeria&rsquo;s newly elected president, Muhammadu Buhari, said, &ldquo;What I am demanding is the return of the assets.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/where-is-the-money-going/the-clause-in-the-us-constitution-that-trump-as-president-would-violate-with-his-foreign-businesses-161204?news=859863">The Clause in the U.S. Constitution that Trump as President Would Violate with His Foreign Businesses</a> (by Richard Tofel, ProPublica)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/constitutional-violations-of-trumps-foreign-business-dealings-may-never-be-known-due-to-limited-disclosure-rules-161201?news=859849">Constitutional Violations of Trump&rsquo;s Foreign Business Dealings May Never Be Known Due to Limited Disclosure Rules</a> (by Derek Kravitz, ProPublica)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/justice-dept-takes-aim-at-15-billion-in-assets-stashed-in-us-by-dictators-and-other-foreign-politicians-160217?news=858312">Justice Dept. Takes Aim at $1.5 Billion in Assets Stashed in U.S. by Dictators and Other Foreign Politicians</a> (by Leslie Wayne, New York Times)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/unusual-news/us-kleptocracy-initiative-swoops-down-on-african-official-living-in-malibu-141014?news=854522">U.S. &ldquo;Kleptocracy Initiative&rdquo; Swoops Down on African Official Living in Malibu</a> (by Ken Broder, AllGov California)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/justice-dept-set-to-seize-assets-of-african-dictators-son?news=843457">Justice Dept. Set to Seize Assets of African Dictator&rsquo;s Son</a> (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)</p>
2017-01-01T14:15:06-08:00859984http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/nations-top-climate-change-fighter-california-is-ready-to-roll-up-sleeves-and-go-it-alone-161228?news=859984U.S. and the WorldNation’s Top Climate-Change Fighter, California, is ready to roll up Sleeves and Go It Alone<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
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</p>
<p>
By Adam Nagourney and Henry Fountain, New York Times</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
LOS ANGELES &mdash; Foreign governments concerned about climate change may soon be spending more time dealing with Sacramento, California, than Washington.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
President-elect Donald Trump has packed his Cabinet with nominees who dispute the science of global warming. He has signaled he will withdraw the United States from the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/world-leaders-to-uphold-paris-climate-accord-with-or-without-the-us-161115?news=859775">Paris climate agreement</a>. He has <a href="file:///C:/Users/Danny/Documents/allgovDB/Climate%20Change%20Denier%20Trump%20Cites%20Global%20Warming%20as%20Reason%20to%20Build%20Wall%20to%20Protect%20His%20Luxury%20Golf%20Course">belittled the notion of global warming</a> and attacked policies intended to combat it.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But California &mdash; a state that has for 50 years been a leader in environmental advocacy &mdash; is about to step into the breach. In a show of defiance, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/officials/california_brown_jerry?officialid=228">Gov. Jerry Brown</a>, a Democrat, and legislative leaders said they would work directly with other nations and states to defend and strengthen what were already far and away the most aggressive policies to fight climate change in the nation. That includes a legislatively mandated target of reducing carbon emissions in California to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;California can make a significant contribution to advancing the cause of dealing with climate change, irrespective of what goes on in Washington,&rdquo; Brown said. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t underestimate California&rsquo;s resolve if everything moves in this extreme climate denial direction. Yes, we will take action.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The environmental effort poses risks. Trump and Republicans have the power to undercut California&rsquo;s climate policies. &ldquo;They could basically stop enforcement of the Clean Air Act and CO2 emissions,&rdquo; said Hal Harvey, president of <a href="http://energyinnovation.org/">Energy Innovation</a>, a policy research group in San Francisco.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
And some business leaders warned that California&rsquo;s embrace of environmental regulations could put it at a disadvantage, all the more so as conservatives elsewhere move to roll back environmental regulations.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Still, Democrats relish the prospect of challenging Trump on climate change. And California has the weight to get into the ring: It is one of the 10 largest economies in the world.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;This is not something that&rsquo;s going to be fueled by dislike of Donald Trump,&rdquo; said Adrienne Alvord, the western states director for the <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>. &ldquo;This will be fueled by people liking these policies and wanting to see them continue. Our leadership and the people of California support the science.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Alvord said that the fossil-fuel industry may feel emboldened to take on some of the state&rsquo;s energy and climate initiatives.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;But they would be fighting a very uphill battle,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Politically, it&rsquo;s going to be very difficult to really slow this train down.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/world-leaders-to-uphold-paris-climate-accord-with-or-without-the-us-161115?news=859775">World Leaders to Uphold Paris Climate Accord, With or Without the U.S.</a> (by Karl Ritter, Associated Press)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/controversies/california-sixthgrade-science-books-on-the-fence-over-climate-change-151112?news=857838">California Sixth&ndash;Grade Science Books on the Fence over Climate Change</a> (by Ken Broder, AllGov California)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/top-stories/oil-industry-million-dollar-smokescreen-dooms-gasoline-cuts-in-climate-bill-150910?news=857393">Oil Industry &ldquo;Million-Dollar Smokescreen&rdquo; Dooms Gasoline Cuts in Climate Bill</a> (by Ken Broder, AllGov California)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/california-and-the-nation/38-of-californians-mostly-republicans-deny-climate-change-affects-the-state-150731?news=857090">38% of Californians, Mostly Republicans, Deny Climate Change Affects the State</a> (by Ken Broder, AllGov California)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/california-drought-very-likely-due-to-climate-change-14-towns-soon-to-run-out-of-water-141003?news=854432">California Drought &ldquo;Very Likely&rdquo; Due to Climate Change; 14 Towns Soon to Run Out of Water</a> (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)</p>
<p>
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/california-and-the-nation/study-links-california-drought-to-global-warming-140429?news=853031">Study Links California Drought to Global Warming</a> (by Ken Broder, AllGov California</p>
2016-12-28T12:50:06-08:00859982http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/growing-number-of-americans-opt-to-retire-outside-of-united-states-161228?news=859982U.S. and the WorldGrowing Number of Americans Opt to Retire Outside of United States<p>
By Maria Zamudio, Associated Press</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Newly widowed, Kay McCowen quit her job, sold her house, applied for Social Security and retired to <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3492">Mexico</a>. It was a move she and her husband, Mel, had discussed before he passed away in 2012.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;I wanted to find a place where I could afford to live off my Social Security,&quot; she said. &quot;The weather here is so perfect, and it&#39;s a beautiful place.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
She is among a growing number of Americans who are retiring outside the United States. The number grew 17 percent between 2010 and 2015 and is expected to increase over the next 10 years as more baby boomers retire.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Just under 400,000 American retirees are now living abroad, according to the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/independent-agencies/social-security-administration?agencyid=7305">Social Security Administration</a>. The countries they have chosen most often: <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3469">Canada</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3490">Japan</a>, Mexico, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3493">Germany</a> and the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3503">United Kingdom</a>.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Retirees most often cite the cost of living as the reason for moving elsewhere, said Olivia S. Mitchell, director of the <a href="http://www.pensionresearchcouncil.org/about/">Pension Research Council</a> at the University of Pennsylvania&#39;s Wharton School.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;I think that many people retire when they are in good health and they are interested in stretching their dollars and seeing the world,&quot; Mitchell said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
McCowen&#39;s rent in Ajijic, a community outside Guadalajara near Mexico&#39;s Lake Chapala, is half of what she was paying in Texas. And since the weather is moderate, utility bills are inexpensive.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
In some countries, Mitchell said, retirees also may find it less expensive to hire someone to do their laundry, clean, cook and even provide long-term care than in the United States.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
McCowen has a community of other American retirees nearby and has adjusted well.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But for others there are hurdles to overcome to adjust to life in a different country.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Viviana Rojas, an associate professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, says the biggest obstacle is not speaking the language or knowing the culture.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;Many of the people we interviewed said they spoke Spanish, but they actually spoke very little Spanish,&quot; said Rojas, who is writing a book about retirees in Mexico. &quot;They didn&#39;t have the capacity of speaking enough Spanish to meet their basic needs like going to the doctor or to the store.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Access to health care also can be a challenge. While retirees still can receive Social Security benefits, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-health-and-human-services/medicare?agencyid=7399">Medicare</a> is not available to those living abroad, Mitchell said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Joseph Roginski, 71, says that while the cost of living is higher in Japan, access to health care is not. &quot;Things are very expensive here. It is impossible to live off Social Security alone,&quot; said Roginski, who was stationed in Japan in 1968. &quot;But health insurance is a major factor in staying here.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The former military language and intelligence specialist said he pays $350 annually to be part of Japan&#39;s national health insurance. His policy covers 70 percent of his costs. The rest is covered by a secondary insurance program for retired military personnel.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Japan experienced the biggest growth of American retirees &mdash; at 42 percent &mdash; and more than any other country between 2010 and 2014, according to data from the Social Security Administration. The large U.S. military presence in the country may be a factor.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
There are more than 50,000 U.S. military servicemen and -women stationed in Japan. The presence is so large that in the island of Okinawa, the U.S. military occupies about 19 percent of the area, according to Ellis S. Krauss, professor emeritus of Japanese politics and policy-making at the University of California, San Diego.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Roginski, who volunteers for the <a href="http://www.misawarao.org/">Misawa Air Base Retiree Activities Office</a>, said he helps connect more than 450 retirees and their families living in Northern Japan with resources. He said he would never move back to the United States.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;We have a real strong sense of security here,&quot; he said. &quot;I can leave my door unlocked and no one will take anything. When I go to another country I feel nervous, but when I come back I feel like I&#39;m home.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Mexico has become home for retired firefighter, Dan Williams, 72, and his wife, Donna, 68. The couple has been living near the same retirement community in Lake Chapala for 14 years.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;The climate and the medical services are very good,&quot; Williams said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Williams teaches painting to adults and children and puts together a monthly magazine for the local American Legion. He is also a member of the Lake Chapala Society, which offers daily activities for American retirees.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
It was those same services that attracted McCowen to the region.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;Before moving, I found out how many widowed and divorced women lived here,&quot; she said. &quot;There is comfort in numbers.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
She says she loves being in a lively community.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;I see older people walking year round. I see them all over the place, even in their wheelchairs. If they were in the U.S., they would probably be in a nursing home,&quot; she said. &quot;I don&#39;t think I could move back.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/where-is-the-money-going/44-of-americans-over-50-plan-to-take-social-security-before-retirement-age-160529?news=858893">44% of Americans Over 50 Plan to Take Social Security before Retirement Age</a> (Adam Allington, Associated Press)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/where-is-the-money-going/retirement-looks-golden-for-top-ceos-not-so-much-for-average-american-worker-151102?news=857759">Retirement Looks Golden for Top CEOs, Not So Much for Average American Worker</a> (by Steve Straehley, AllGov)</p>
2016-12-28T12:40:06-08:00859960http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/england-sends-its-banned-weed-killer-paraquat-to-us-where-demand-is-high-in-spite-of-parkinsons-link-161223?news=859960U.S. and the WorldEngland Sends Its Banned Weed Killer Paraquat to U.S, Where Demand is high in Spite of Parkinson’s Link<p>
&nbsp;</p>
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&nbsp;</p>
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</p>
<p>
By Danny Hakim, New York Times</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
HUDDERSFIELD, England &mdash; The factory here, set amid a brick campus in a green and hilly industrial town, recently celebrated its centennial.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
It produces paraquat, one of the world&rsquo;s most enduring weed killers &mdash; but not one that can be purchased in this part of northern England, in the rest of Britain or across the Channel in the rest of the European Union.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
So it will be sent to the United States, or another part of the globe that still allows paraquat to be sprayed on weeds.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Paraquat has long been controversial because of its use in suicides in many parts of the world, since drinking one sip can be lethal. But now regulators in the United States are grappling with a wave of research linking paraquat to a less immediately apparent effect &mdash; Parkinson&rsquo;s disease.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
In a recent, little noticed regulatory filing, the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/independent-agencies/environmental-protection-agency-epa?agencyid=7326">Environmental Protection Agency</a> said, &ldquo;There is a large body of epidemiology data on paraquat dichloride use and Parkinson&rsquo;s disease.&rdquo; The agency is weighing whether to continue allowing the chemical to be sprayed on American cropland, although a decision is not expected until 2018, and it is unclear how the incoming administration of Donald Trump will view the matter.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
In the meantime, many of the nations that ban paraquat and other chemicals whose use is contentious still allow them to be manufactured as long as they are exported to faraway fields. The Huddersfield plant is owned by <a href="http://www4.syngenta.com/">Syngenta</a>, a pesticide giant based in Switzerland, which has not allowed paraquat since 1989.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Even the government of <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3489">China</a>, a nation not known for environmental regulation, said in 2012 that it would phase out paraquat &ldquo;to safeguard people&rsquo;s lives.&rdquo; But it still allows production for export.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
As Europe and China move away from paraquat, its use is rebounding in the United States. That is particularly true for soybean fields, where the number of pounds used is up more than fourfold over the past decade, according to <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-agriculture?detailsDepartmentID=568">U.S. Agriculture Department</a> data.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The world&rsquo;s most popular weed killer is <a href="http://www.monsanto.com/pages/default.aspx">Monsanto</a>&rsquo;s Roundup; some 220 million pounds of its active ingredient were used last year in the United States, according to the EPA. But weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup, and paraquat has been marketed as an alternative. Last year, 7 million pounds of paraquat were used in the United States, on nearly 15 million acres, Syngenta said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Paraquat is just one of <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/toxic-pesticides-banned-in-other-countries-continue-to-be-used-in-us-141030?news=854672">scores of pesticides prohibited in Europe but sold outside it</a>. In 2013, the European Union imposed a moratorium on a widely used group of insecticides made by Syngenta and Bayer, the German giant, that were linked to a decline in bee colonies. In 2003, the European Union banned one of the most popular weed killers in the U.S., Syngenta&rsquo;s atrazine.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Industry officials and academics funded by agrochemical companies often criticize Europe&rsquo;s regulators for taking a precautionary approach to regulation. They frequently claim that the risks of these various chemicals are well understood. But paraquat shows how complex the question of risk can be.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
While the possibility of a Parkinson&rsquo;s link has been cited in studies going back more than two decades, research in the past five years has intensified, including a prominent study by the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-health-and-human-services/national-institutes-of-health?agencyid=7400">National Institutes of Health</a> and meta-analyses of a large body of research. The studies have looked at the exposure of farmers and others who spray paraquat, as well as people who live near where it is used, which can include nonagricultural settings like those around roads and rail tracks.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The data is overwhelming&rdquo; linking paraquat and Parkinson&rsquo;s disease, said Dr. Samuel M. Goldman, an epidemiologist in the <a href="http://www.sanfrancisco.va.gov/">San Francisco Veterans Affairs</a> health system who has studied the connection. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not a farmer, I don&rsquo;t need to kill weeds, but I have to believe there are less dangerous options out there.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Freya Kamel, a scientist with a branch of the National Institutes of Health who has also studied the topic, said she found the breadth of the research &ldquo;about as persuasive as these things can get.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a slam dunk; it never is,&rdquo; Kamel said. &ldquo;But to me the weight of the evidence suggests there&rsquo;s a relationship.&rdquo; Personally, she added, she believes paraquat should be banned.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Syngenta has long rebutted the Parkinson&rsquo;s link, and by no means is paraquat seen as a sole factor in the disease. Philip A. Botham, Syngenta&rsquo;s head of product safety, said, &ldquo;We would never market or continue to market any chemical which we genuinely felt posed a health risk or an environmental risk.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
As for studies drawing a connection between Parkinson&rsquo;s and paraquat, he said, &ldquo;Our view on those studies is that they are interesting &mdash; we don&rsquo;t dismiss them &mdash; but they generate an interesting hypothesis which is worth exploring.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>A Question of Risk</em></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Paraquat is more than 130 years old, but it wasn&rsquo;t widely used as a pesticide until the middle of the 20th century. Today, though, it is used on more than 100 crops globally, including oranges, coffee and sugar cane.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
It gained notoriety after the U.S. government paid to have it sprayed on marijuana plants in Mexico in the 1970s, leading to concerns that paraquat-contaminated pot was being sold in the United States. When the stoner character known as the Dude referred to someone as &ldquo;human paraquat&rdquo; in the 1998 film &ldquo;The Big Lebowski,&rdquo; he was essentially calling him a buzzkill since paraquat continued to be used for years to kill marijuana plants.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Determining the acute, or immediate, health risks of such chemicals is easier than assessing chronic, long-term problems. And taking away one weed killer means another is likely to replace it, with its own potential drawbacks.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
While paraquat&rsquo;s long-term effects are debated, its acute risks are well known. Sometimes, poisoning results from poor equipment and safety practices, a problem not unusual in developing countries, though farmers have died after being accidentally exposed in developed countries, too. Burkina Faso, in Africa, once sought international regulation of the weed killer, citing research showing it accounted for a fifth of that country&rsquo;s accidental pesticide poisoning cases.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
When ingested by humans, paraquat is often fatal. <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3523">South Korea</a> experienced a 10 percent decline in suicides after it banned paraquat in 2011, according to one study. Researchers in Taiwan have said it causes 160 deaths a year there.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Isabella Blow, a well-known editor at the British magazine <em>Tatler</em>, died after drinking paraquat in 2007, the last year it was legal in Britain. She was not the first person in her family to die from drinking the weed killer.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The Parkinson&rsquo;s question is more complicated. Symptoms of the disease, such as tremors and slowed movement, stem from a loss of nerve cells in part of the brain.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
While the causes are not fully understood, it is typically viewed as stemming from a blend of environmental and genetic factors. Some research even draws a connection to gut bacteria. A wide variety of studies have linked paraquat and Parkinson&rsquo;s, including epidemiological reviews that have looked at human disease patterns, studies involving experiments on rats, and research examining toxicity on a cellular level.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Some studies point to a combination of pesticides as a risk factor, and even well water in rural areas. Paraquat and another pesticide, rotenone, which is obtained from plant roots, are the ones most frequently linked to Parkinson&rsquo;s. The use of rotenone in lakes and other water supplies has been contentious.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
A 2011 study led by the <a href="http://www.thepi.org/">Parkinson&rsquo;s Institute</a> and the National Institutes of Health drew on a federal survey of farmers and their spouses in Iowa and North Carolina, as well as others who handled pesticides. Those studied were 2 1/2 more likely to develop Parkinson&rsquo;s if they used paraquat or rotenone. A 2012 study found that those who used paraquat, and who also had a certain genetic variation, were 11 times more likely to develop Parkinson&rsquo;s, suggesting that certain people could be more at risk from exposure than others.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a poison, and we really shouldn&rsquo;t be using this as an herbicide in the way we do,&rdquo; said Dr. Beate Ritz, a professor of epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has studied health risks to people living near where pesticides are used.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Syngenta has been known for aggressively defending its products, including engaging in a bitter feud with a scientist whose research it once underwrote. The company argues that studies implicating paraquat do not adequately consider other environmental factors or chemicals that are present. Syngenta also studied the workforce at an old British manufacturing site that produced paraquat and found a lower-than-expected rate of Parkinson&rsquo;s, though its study relied on death certificates, which often underreport the disease.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I do believe paraquat is safe when it&rsquo;s used appropriately,&rdquo; said Botham of Syngenta. &ldquo;I will, though, always as a scientist be open to any new findings.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
In a filing with the EPA this year, Syngenta said it had hired Dr. Colin Berry to help lead a scientific review of the Parkinson&rsquo;s issue. The review &ldquo;concluded that the evidence available from epidemiological studies was fragmentary and insufficient to establish whether herbicides and paraquat in particular&rdquo; increase the risk of Parkinson&rsquo;s, according to Syngenta&rsquo;s EPA filing.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Berry, an emeritus professor at Queen Mary University of London, was at the center of high-profile civil cases in 1999 and 2000 that led to more than $1 million in payments to two of his patients who were given misdiagnoses of breast cancer and had needless double mastectomies. His hospital&rsquo;s internal review, which was read in court by the judge handling one of the cases, cited &ldquo;a serious and indefensible diagnosis&rdquo; and raised questions of basic competency, according to accounts of the case.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Berry has also studied pesticides for many years and has been visible of late as a consultant for both Syngenta and Monsanto. In an interview, he disputed the relevance of the cancer cases to his work assessing Parkinson&rsquo;s, and dismissed a link between paraquat and the disease.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I think the volume of the data suggests that is unlikely,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t find a consistent association there to suggest that paraquat is particularly important.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
He pointed to a recent study published in <em>Nature</em> that highlighted genetic factors in causing Parkinson&rsquo;s.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But the lead author of that study, Dr. Asa Abeliovich of the Columbia University Medical Center, said in an interview that &ldquo;obviously there&rsquo;s a bunch of solid epidemiological studies that link paraquat to Parkinson&rsquo;s disease risk, so I think there&rsquo;s definitely support for that.&rdquo; Abeliovich also said the paraquat studies underscored &ldquo;that there are certain environmental factors that matter,&rdquo; which interact &ldquo;with genetic factors.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Dr. Vikram Khurana, a neurologist at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and a clinician at Brigham and Women&rsquo;s Hospital who studies Parkinson&rsquo;s, said the body of research drawing a link between paraquat and Parkinson&rsquo;s had &ldquo;converged to make a fairly convincing argument that paraquat is truly an environmental exposure that can either increase the risk of Parkinson&rsquo;s disease or collaborate with other factors, including genetic factors.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Jack Housenger, director of the EPA&rsquo;s pesticide programs, said, &ldquo;In terms of Parkinson&rsquo;s disease, there&rsquo;s a lot of data out there.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure there&rsquo;s any one study where there&rsquo;s a direct link that&rsquo;s been established here,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;but given all the data, we&rsquo;re incorporating all that in our next risk assessment.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>Double Standards</em></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The business models of many chemical companies, including those based in Europe, have become predicated, in part, on keeping their products legal outside the Continent. This year, Britain has exported paraquat to <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3470">Brazil</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3518">Colombia</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3497">Ecuador</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3508">Guatemala</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3476">India</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3494">Indonesia</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3490">Japan</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3492">Mexico</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3521">Panama</a>, Singapore, South Africa, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3525">Taiwan</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/search?searchQuery=Uruguay">Uruguay</a> and <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3498">Venezuela</a>, in addition to the United States, according to the office of <a href="http://www.hse.gov.uk/">Britain&rsquo;s Health and Safety Executive</a>.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;This is one of the quintessential examples of double standards,&rdquo; said Baskut Tuncak, a United Nations official who specializes in hazardous substances. &ldquo;Paraquat is banned in the U.K. and the EU, but it&rsquo;s still being used, and resulting in serious harms outside the EU where it&rsquo;s being shipped.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Tuncak said he had begun examining practices allowing companies to make pesticides exclusively for use outside their borders, seeing it as a potential human rights issue. He said paraquat would be &ldquo;one of the issues that I plan to examine&rdquo; during an official visit to Britain next month.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
International efforts to regulate pesticides have been halting. Each year, government officials from around the world convene in Europe to discuss whether to add pesticides to a list of hazardous chemicals maintained as part of an international treaty called the Rotterdam Convention, a designation that creates disclosure requirements for exporting countries. A few countries, including <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3500">Vietnam</a> and <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3497">Ecuador</a>, automatically ban or restrict chemicals that are added to the list.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Stark differences in national approaches are typically on full display. At a meeting last year in Rome, European regulators pushed to add atrazine, another Syngenta weed killer, to the list. But a government representative from India &mdash; which itself operates a pesticide manufacturer &mdash; was more voluble in defending atrazine than a Syngenta lobbyist who was present. The official even argued over technicalities, including how many weeks ahead of the Rome meeting supporting documents needed to be circulated.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Lobbyists, too, are active at the meetings. In 2013, at a conference in Geneva, delegates debated adding paraquat to the hazardous chemical list. During a meeting on the topic, Enrique Lacs, a representative of a Latin American trade association, took the lead in speaking on behalf of the Guatemalan government delegation. Lacs has also been an adviser to <a href="http://app6352.egm618.info/default.aspx?u=bl3pte4&amp;o=xbkkvzb&amp;t=main&amp;f=1">Gremiagro</a>, a trade group for pesticide producers that opposes action on paraquat.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
His presence, on behalf of a national delegation, angered other attendees. Lacs&rsquo;s credentials to participate in the convention were eventually revoked. Guatemala was among a small group of countries that ultimately prevented paraquat from being added to the hazardous chemical list.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Lacs said by email that he had simply been acting as a translator. He is now Guatemala&rsquo;s deputy economics minister.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Juliette Voinov Kohler, a legal and policy adviser for the governing body that oversees the Rotterdam Convention, declined to comment on the episode but said credentials were sometimes revoked, &ldquo;thereby denying access to meeting premises.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
In Huddersfield, local environmentalists no longer give much thought to the Syngenta factory. Even a chemical spill last year generated little interest.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Andrew Cooper, a Green Party member who serves on the local governing council, and whose district is a few miles from the plant, said activists were more worried about pollution from cars on a road abutting Syngenta&rsquo;s main building on the site.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no impact that we can determine on the local community,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What they produce and what goes out the door, that&rsquo;s a different matter, but it&rsquo;s not something we campaign on much in recent years.&rdquo; He added, &ldquo;It has been off our radar.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/epa-proposes-expanded-use-of-weed-killer-it-said-is-highly-toxic-to-plants-161104?news=859716">EPA Proposes Expanded Use of Weed Killer it said is Highly Toxic to Plants</a> (by Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/toxic-pesticides-banned-in-other-countries-continue-to-be-used-in-us-141030?news=854672">Toxic Pesticides Banned in Other Countries Continue to be used in U.S.</a> (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/dramatic-increase-in-weed-killer-use-in-us?news=839879">Dramatic Increase in Weed-Killer Use in U.S.</a> (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)</p>
2016-12-23T12:45:06-08:00859950http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/kuwait-moves-annual-washington-party-to-trumps-hotel-underscoring-ongoing-trump-business-conflicts-161221?news=859950U.S. and the WorldKuwait Moves Annual Washington Party to Trump’s Hotel, Underscoring Ongoing Trump Business Conflicts<p>
By Bradley Klapper, Associated Press</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
WASHINGTON (AP) &mdash; One of the Middle East&#39;s richest nations said Tuesday it would host its annual Washington party at Donald Trump&#39;s new hotel, underscoring the president-elect&#39;s unusual status as the owner of a major venue for events in the U.S. capital.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/officials/al-sabah-salem?officialid=29366">Salem Al Sabah</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3588">Kuwait</a>&#39;s ambassador to the U.S., said the party would take place Feb. 25, adding that he hopes guests like the &quot;new hotel in town.&quot; He said no one pressed him to move the Kuwaiti National Day event from its regular venue at the <a href="http://www.fourseasons.com/washington/">Four Seasons</a>. Although Kuwait did not have a contract with the Four Seasons for the party, the date had been set aside for it to possibly take place there.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;I do not know President-elect Trump,&quot; the ambassador told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. &quot;I do not know any of his people. None of his people have contacted me.&quot; He added: &quot;I thought would be exciting for our guests to see a new venue. It looks great. It looks cool. So let&#39;s do it.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Al Sabah noted that last year&#39;s reception occurred at the <a href="http://www.newseum.org/">Newseum,</a> a museum promoting the media.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Nevertheless, the move to Trump&#39;s $200-million renovation of the Old Post Office Pavilion could reinforce questions raised about the incoming president&#39;s possible conflicts of interest. House Democrats already have warned that they&#39;ll make the splashy hotel a headache for Trump if he doesn&#39;t dump his ownership stake before taking office Jan. 20. Trump has a six-decade lease on the property.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The Trump Organization is moving to remove thorny overseas relationships, canceling hotel licensing deals in <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3451">Azerbaijan</a>, neighboring Georgia and <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3470">Brazil</a>.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Al Sabah ridiculed the notion that he would choose the D.C. hotel to curry favor with the next administration.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;We have very deep economic, military and cultural ties; we&#39;ve had tens of thousands of American troops in our country,&quot; he said, noting Kuwait&#39;s basing of forces for U.S. operations in Afghanistan and to fight the Islamic State group. &quot;You think a two-hour reception in a ballroom does that?&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/trump-dc-hotel-bookings-by-foreign-envoys-and-special-interest-groups-raise-alarm-among-ethics-experts-161208?news=859881">Trump D.C. Hotel Bookings by Foreign Envoys and Special Interest Groups Raise Alarm among Ethics Experts</a> (by Bernard Condon, Associated Press)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/constitutional-violations-of-trumps-foreign-business-dealings-may-never-be-known-due-to-limited-disclosure-rules-161201?news=859849">Constitutional Violations of Trump&rsquo;s Foreign Business Dealings May Never Be Known Due to Limited Disclosure Rules</a> (by Derek Kravitz, ProPublica)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/5-trump-business-ties-that-pose-conflicts-for-the-president-elect-161128?news=859833">5 Trump Business Ties that Pose Conflicts for the President-Elect</a> (by Bernard Condon, Associated Press)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/with-no-ethics-rules-binding-us-presidents-trump-business-ventures-put-conflicts-of-interest-at-high-risk-161119?news=859790">With No Ethics Rules Binding U.S. Presidents, Trump Business Ventures Put Conflicts of Interest at High Risk</a> (by Bernard Condon, Associated Press)</p>
2016-12-21T12:45:06-08:00859933http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/americas-wonder-woman-handed-pink-slip-by-un-after-protests-of-over-her-ambassadorship-161218?news=859933U.S. and the WorldAmerica's Wonder Woman Handed Pink Slip by U.N. after Protests of Over Her Ambassadorship<p>
By Mark Kennedy, AP Entertainment Writer</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
NEW YORK (AP) &mdash; The comic book heroine Wonder Woman has been abruptly fired from her honorary ambassador job at the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/index.html">United Nations</a> following <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/protests-erupt-over-naming-of-sexy-us-comic-book-character-as-un-ambassador-for-female-empowerment-161022?news=859648">protests</a> from both inside and outside the world organization that a white, skimpily dressed American prone to violence wasn&#39;t the best role model for girls.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Rheal LeBlanc, head of press and external relations, said Tuesday the appointment of Wonder Woman as an Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls would end this week, a move that come less than two months after a splashy ceremony at the U.N., which attracted actresses Lynda Carter, who played Wonder Woman in the 1970s TV series, and Gal Gadot, who has taken on the role in the forthcoming &quot;Wonder Woman&quot; film.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Critics said the appointment was tone deaf at a time when real women are fighting against sexual exploitation and abuse, and that there were plenty of real heroines that could be the face for gender equality. At the time of the appointment, there was no indication it would end so quickly.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;It&#39;s ending because it&#39;s ending. And it was always meant to end,&quot; U.N. spokesman Jeffrey A. Brez told The Associated Press. &quot;The objective was to reach out to Wonder Woman&#39;s fans and I think we did a great job of that.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
In a statement, <a href="http://www.dcentertainment.com/">DC Entertainment</a>, which owns the Wonder Woman title, said it was &quot;extremely pleased with the awareness that this partnership brought&quot; as well as &quot;elevating the global conversation around the empowerment of women and girls.&quot; It added that Wonder Woman, who turned 75 this year, &quot;stands for peace, justice and equality.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Wonder Woman&#39;s image was to be used by the U.N. on social media platforms to promote women&#39;s empowerment, including on gender-based violence and the fuller participation of women in public life. Defenders of the decision pointed to the character&#39;s pioneering, feminist roots and her muscular bravery.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But an online petition, started by U.N. staffers and signed by more than 44,000 people, asked the secretary-general to reconsider the appointment, saying the message the U.N. was &quot;sending to the world with this appointment is extremely disappointing.&quot; And during the Oct. 21 ceremony at the U.N., many staffers silently turned their back to the stage, some with their fists in the air.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The Wonder Woman appointment came after many women were dismayed that another man, Antonio Guterres, the former prime minister of <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3581">Portugal</a>, was chosen to be the next secretary-general, even though more than half the candidates were women.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Several critics took issue with Wonder Woman&#39;s skimpy outfit, arguing that the world might not embrace a scantily clad character in a thigh-baring bodysuit with an American flag motif and knee-high boots.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Honorary ambassadors &mdash; as opposed to goodwill ambassadors like Nicole Kidman and Anne Hathaway &mdash; are fictional characters. The U.N. previously tapped Winnie the Pooh to be an honorary Ambassador of Friendship in 1998 and Tinker Bell as the honorary Ambassador of Green in 2009.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/protests-erupt-over-naming-of-sexy-us-comic-book-character-as-un-ambassador-for-female-empowerment-161022?news=859648">Protests Erupt Over Naming of Sexy U.S. Comic Book Character as U.N. Ambassador for Female Empowerment</a> (by Somini Sengupta, New York Times)</p>
2016-12-18T14:10:06-08:00859914http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/first-ever-us-court-hearing-granted-to-surviving-civilian-victim-of-us-killer-drone-161214?news=859914U.S. and the WorldFirst-Ever U.S. Court Hearing Granted to Surviving Civilian Victim of U.S. Killer Drone<p>
By Britain Eakin, Courthouse News Service</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
WASHINGTON (CN) &ndash; A surviving relative of two Yemeni men killed by hellfire missiles fired from a U.S. drone made a rare appearance Tuesday to ask the D.C. Circuit to reinstate his lawsuit seeking an apology from the government.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The wrongful death case brought by Faisal bin Ali Jaber, a Yemeni engineer who described the reality of living under the U.S. drone program as &ldquo;a living hell,&rdquo; marks the first time a U.S. court has granted a civilian drone victim a hearing.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Ali Jaber lost his brother-in-law Salem bin Ali Jaber &ndash; an imam who regularly preached against al-Qaida in his sermons &ndash; and his 26-year-old nephew Waleed bin Ali Jaber, a local traffic cop, after a U.S. drone strike exploded near a local mosque in Hadramout in eastern <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3528">Yemen</a> in 2012. The strike also killed three unknown youths.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The three youths&mdash;the presumed intended targets of the strike&mdash;were not high-ranking members of a terrorist organization, nor did they pose a threat&mdash;imminent or otherwise&mdash;to the lives of any Americans,&rdquo; Ali Jaber&rsquo;s appeals brief states.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Last year, Ali Jaber sued President Barack Obama, former Secretary of Defense <a href="http://www.allgov.com/officials/panetta-leon?officialid=28872">Leon Panetta</a> and former CIA Director <a href="http://www.allgov.com/officials/petraeus-david?officialid=29398">David Petraeus</a> not for monetary damages, but for an apology and explanation of why his relatives were killed.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;This is a really important action for this court,&rdquo; Ali Jaber&rsquo;s attorney Jeffrey Robinson said to the D.C. Circuit&rsquo;s three-judge panel Tuesday morning.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
According to Robinson, the court must decide whether it will be held hostage to the political-question doctrine that prevents courts from interfering in executive policymaking &ndash; one of the primary reasons cited by U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle for dismissing the lawsuit back in March.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Will the court abandon its responsibilities to review real claims about whether executive branch use of deadly force abroad complies with international and U.S. law whenever the U.S. says that a claim touches on foreign or military affairs, Robinson asked the judges.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;That is a remarkable assertion,&rdquo; he said, one that is not required by the D.C. Circuit&rsquo;s precedent.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It is particularly remarkable in this case because the government asked this court to abandon its responsibilities without the government having ever first had to put forward any evidence &ndash; any suggestion, any statement &ndash; that the court&rsquo;s exercise of its responsibilities would actually intrude upon the foreign and military affairs operations that the political-question doctrine is designed to protect,&rdquo; he added.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Obama defended the drone program&rsquo;s legality in his final national security address last Tuesday and touted its efficacy in reaching terrorists in places where it is impossible to capture them.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Under rules that I put in place and that I made public, before any strike is taken outside of a warzone, there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured,&rdquo; he said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But an amicus brief filed by three former drone operators in support of Ali Jaber contests that assertion.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Far from the grave consideration the executive branch purports to give each strike, amici witnessed a culture that often encouraged and celebrated strikes,&rdquo; the brief states. &ldquo;Contrary to the executive branch claims that the program operates with strict adherence to international legal principles and state sovereignty, amici witnessed a secret, global system without regard for borders, conducting widespread surveillance with the ability to conduct deadly targeted killing operations.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
To the critics of drone strikes, however, Obama suggested the alternatives must be weighed.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Drone strikes allow us to deny terrorists a safe haven without airstrikes, which are less precise, or invasions that are much more likely to kill innocent civilians as well as American service members,&rdquo; the outgoing president said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But Ali Jaber painted a different picture of the impact of U.S. drone strikes. Outside the D.C. Circuit&rsquo;s E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse, he made a low hum to replicate the sound the drones make while flying overhead.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
They are there all the time, he said in an interview, which was translated through an interpreter.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;These drones are not effective. They&rsquo;re not as a success as you would think,&rdquo; his translator said, noting that the drone strikes do not kill &ldquo;as many bad people as it&rsquo;s supposed to,&rdquo; but often kill civilians.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
In 2015, Ali Jaber said that al-Qaida actually expanded in parts of Yemen &ndash; four years after the U.S. began using drones there.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The [United] States can invest there in other ways that can actually promote other ideology among the people over there,&rdquo; he said through his translator. &ldquo;These drones are actually really helping al-Qaida attract people because they are saying, &lsquo;look &ndash; the [United] States are killing you. Come join us so we can kill them.&#39;&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Ali Jaber said people in his area &ldquo;do not know anything about the [United] States but the drones.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, arguing on behalf of the government, Katherine Twomey Allen with the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-justice?detailsDepartmentID=573">Department of Justice</a> suggested that Ali Jaber, as next friend and representative of the estates of his deceased relatives, lacks standing.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s unclear what this court could do that would redress their injuries,&rdquo; she said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Ali Jaber alleges the drone strikes constituted extrajudicial killings in violation of international law and the <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-106/pdf/STATUTE-106-Pg73.pdf">Torture Victim Protection Act</a> (pdf), which is enforceable under the <a href="http://cja.org/what-we-do/litigation/legal-strategy/the-alien-tort-statute/">Alien Tort Statue</a>.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But Allen said the allegations are too speculative, as are questions about whether the threat of additional missile strikes in the area poses a future danger to the surviving relatives. That concern certainly does not apply to the two men who died in the drone strike, she said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
D.C. Circuit Judge Nina Pillard asked Allen if Ali Jaber could add nominal damages if the case is remanded to the lower court, as a way to get around the standing issue.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
That would get around the Torture Victim Protection Act claims, but not the Alien Tort Statute claims, which would require exhaustion of administrative remedies, Allen said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
This piqued Pillard&rsquo;s interest.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What is the administrative remedy for these folks? Where are they supposed to go?&rdquo; Pillard asked.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Allen replied that they have not presented any claims to the agencies &ndash; the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/independent-agencies/central-intelligence-agency-cia?agencyid=7293">CIA</a>, <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-defense?detailsDepartmentID=569">Department of Defense</a> or the White House.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;How does that work?&rdquo; Pillard responded. &ldquo;Is there like a regulatory rubric for that? Where do you go, who do you talk to?&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Allen could not recall &ldquo;the precise process,&rdquo; but said the statues were not intended to cover the claims.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Some sort of claim would need to be made before the agency,&rdquo; Allen said. &ldquo;I was just trying to explain that I&rsquo;m not sure exactly what that would look like because this is fairly unprecedented and it&rsquo;s an extraordinary lawsuit.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Pillard interjected: &ldquo;If you were someone trying to bring this extraordinary lawsuit where would you go to exhaust?&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;To the agencies that they&rsquo;re suing,&rdquo; Allen repeated.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;So they go to the CIA and the White House and the Department of Defense and just send them a letter, or I mean is there any kind of administrative anything?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Allen said she was unaware of any such process.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, one of Ali Jaber&rsquo;s attorneys with Reprieve in New York City, said in an interview after the hearing that they had approached the CIA before filing the lawsuit.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We received no response,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;There are multiple accounts of our having written unanswered letters to these different administrations.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
That included a meeting with White House representatives in 2013, before the case was filed. Ali Jaber received no official response, Sullivan-Bennis said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
His case comes at a critical time, she noted.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We hope that our plea will at least be considered,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Especially in this political climate &ndash; it&rsquo;s more important now than ever before that the executive [branch] be bound by law.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
She added, &ldquo;I think the court essentially has a very rare opportunity to do its role in enforcing the laws at a time when it&rsquo;s more important than ever before.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The political-question doctrine is meant to protect the discretion of the president,&rdquo; Sullivan-Bennis concluded. &ldquo;It is not within the president&rsquo;s power to break international and domestic law.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/obama-justice-dept-says-yemeni-whose-relatives-were-killed-by-americans-by-mistake-cant-sue-and-it-wont-apologize-151006?news=857578">Obama Justice Dept. Says Yemeni Whose Relatives were Killed by Americans by Mistake can&rsquo;t Sue and It Won&rsquo;t Apologize</a> (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/us-lawsuit-by-yemen-drone-strike-victims-families-seeks-truth-accountability-and-apology-150610?news=856684">U.S. Lawsuit by Yemen Drone Strike Victims&rsquo; Families Seeks Truth, Accountability and Apology</a> (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)</p>
2016-12-14T12:45:06-08:00859909http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/exxon-whose-ceo-is-trumps-secretary-of-state-pick-has-billion-dollar-deals-dependent-on-lifting-of-us-sanctions-against-russia-161213?news=859909U.S. and the WorldExxon, Whose CEO is Trump’s Secretary of State Pick, Has Billion-Dollar Deals Dependent on Lifting of U.S. Sanctions against Russia<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<meta content="noindex" name="robots" />
</p>
<p>
By Andrew E. Kramer and Clifford Krauss, New York Times</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
MOSCOW &mdash; Now that President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Rex W. Tillerson, chief executive of <a href="http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/">Exxon Mobil</a>, to be the next secretary of state, the giant oil company stands to make some major gains as well: It has billions of dollars in deals that can go forward only if the United States lifts sanctions against <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3506">Russia</a>.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
As head of America&rsquo;s largest oil company, Tillerson has earned a friendship award from Russia and voiced <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/sanctions-against-russia-dont-tell-exxonmobil-140320?news=852726">skepticism about American sanctions</a> that have halted some of Exxon Mobil&rsquo;s biggest projects in the country.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But Tillerson&rsquo;s stake in Russia&rsquo;s energy industry could create a very blurry line between his interests as an oilman and his role as America&rsquo;s leading diplomat.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The chances that he will view Russia with Exxon Mobil DNA are close to 100 percent,&rdquo; said Robert Weissman, president of <a href="http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=183">Public Citizen</a>, a public interest group based in Washington.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
A tall, strapping Texan, Tillerson guided Exxon&rsquo;s entry into the sharp-elbowed oil politics of Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He has praised the country for its vast potential as an oil supplier ever since, developing close ties to the Kremlin leadership along the way.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Exxon Mobil has various projects afoot in Russia that are allowed under U.S. sanctions. But others have been ground to a halt by the sanctions, including a deal with the Russian state oil company to explore and pump in Siberia that could be worth tens of billions of dollars.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Russian officials have optimistically called the agreement a $500 billion deal.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
As for Tillerson personally, he is scheduled to retire from Exxon Mobil next year. According to company filings this year, Tillerson owned $218 million in company stock, and his pension plan was worth nearly $70 million.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Russia was already a focus of concern after the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/independent-agencies/central-intelligence-agency-cia?agencyid=7293">CIA</a> said the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/us-intelligence-data-analyses-and-briefings-scoffed-at-by-president-elect-trump-161211?news=859901">Kremlin had intervened in the U.S. presidential election to help Trump&rsquo;s candidacy</a>. Now Tillerson&rsquo;s career is igniting a debate over the blending of business and politics &mdash; and whether that could tip the scales in Russia&rsquo;s favor on major policy decisions like the sanctions.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Speaking in Moscow on Monday, Carter Page, a supporter of Trump who described his former work for the Trump campaign as pulling together &ldquo;new ideas&rdquo; on foreign policy, said he was excited that Tillerson would probably put more of an emphasis on private sector business opportunities in relations between Russia and the United States.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What makes me excited about new possibilities is the chance to really work on new things to improve more from a business standpoint,&rdquo; Page said at a news conference.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Others were much warier of a Tillerson appointment.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;As secretary of state, he would be called upon to negotiate with world leaders like Vladimir Putin,&rdquo; said Michael T. Klare, a professor at Hampshire College and the author of &ldquo;The Race for What&rsquo;s Left,&rdquo; which delves into the rush for oil in the thawing Arctic.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;In these negotiations, one has to wonder what would influence the types of deals he is making,&rdquo; Klare said. &ldquo;Questions arise over whether his actions would be benefiting his company or the interests of the United States and its allies.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Trump has called Tillerson a &ldquo;player.&rdquo; At an annual meet-and-greet for corporate chieftains with President Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg economic forum, Tillerson was a regular, his silver coiffure bobbing in the crowd of former spies who have become Russian government and corporate officials and now host the event.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Along with other American chief executives, Tillerson skipped the forum in 2014 to conform to White House pressure to isolate Russia, and Exxon Mobil executives insist they obey the sanctions.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We follow the law,&rdquo; said Alan Jeffers, an Exxon Mobil spokesman. &ldquo;If a law says that a U.S. corporation is not allowed to participate in activities in a particular jurisdiction, that&rsquo;s what we do.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The sanctions are intended to put economic pressure on Russia for its lethal intervention in eastern Ukraine, with the aim of forcing the Russian leadership to change course.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Still, Tillerson has made his criticism of the U.S. policy clear.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
At Exxon&rsquo;s 2014 annual meeting, Tillerson said: &ldquo;We do not support sanctions, generally, because we don&rsquo;t find them to be effective unless they are very well implemented comprehensibly, and that&rsquo;s a very hard thing to do. So we always encourage the people who are making those decisions to consider the very broad collateral damage of who are they really harming.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Then, during a question-and-answer period at a Houston conference in early 2015, Tillerson noted his company looked forward to the sanctions&rsquo; being lifted.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll await a time in which the sanctions environment changes or the sanctions requirements change,&rdquo; he said of blocked Exxon Mobil projects.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Tillerson&rsquo;s approach in Russia tracks what Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer for the Russian tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, who had been jailed, described as &ldquo;the geopolitics of signaling&rdquo; to the Kremlin, a skill of survival and success for Western oil executives in Russia.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Exxon has been willing to engage in practices that make it a first-round contender for new Russian assets,&rdquo; Amsterdam said. &ldquo;The way you do that is coming as close to the line as humanely possible to support the Russians,&rdquo; without breaking the law.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Western sanctions were first enacted on Russia in March 2014 in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea. Then the United States and its allies, including the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3495">Netherlands</a>, implicated Russia in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3507">Ukraine</a> in July. All on board were killed, including 193 Dutch people heading to Asia for vacations and work, flying for a just few moments over a war zone.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
That prompted tighter sanctions. A month later, Russian tanks entered eastern Ukraine, turning the tide against the forces of the U.S.-backed Ukrainian central government. Today, about 300 U.S. soldiers rotate through Ukraine as trainers.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
After the Russian incursion in 2014, the United States prohibited the transfer of advanced offshore and shale oil technology to Russia. The U.S. government announced on Sept. 12 that year that Exxon was to halt all offshore drilling assistance to Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, by Sept. 26.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
But Exxon Mobil&rsquo;s high-tech rig was already drilling in the Kara Sea, in an unfinished $700 million project that had yet to find oil. It would be worthless if not completed.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Russian executives then told Exxon Mobil that Russia&rsquo;s security services would fly in a Russian crew &mdash; in essence seize the rig &mdash; if Exxon Mobil complied with the U.S. law and left without completing the well, according to an oil company executive who had visited the rig in the Arctic.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Exxon relayed the threat to the U.S. government, and the <a href="http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-the-treasury?detailsDepartmentID=577">Treasury Department</a> capitulated, granting an extension that stretched the window to work until Oct. 10. In a statement in 2014, the Russian state oil company denied conveying such a threat to Tillerson&rsquo;s company.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
With the extension in hand, Exxon Mobil discovered a major field with about 750 million barrels of new oil for Russia a few weeks later. Igor I. Sechin, chief executive of the Russian state oil company, called the newly discovered oil field Pobeda &mdash; Russian for victory.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
It is one of the Arctic developments that Exxon Mobil has rights to work on should be the sanctions be lifted.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/obama-administration-and-eu-threaten-shutdown-of-exxonmobils-drilling-in-russian-arctic-140916?news=854266">Obama Administration and EU Threaten Shutdown of ExxonMobil&rsquo;s Drilling in Russian Arctic</a> (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)</p>
<p>
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/sanctions-against-russia-dont-tell-exxonmobil-140320?news=852726">Sanctions against Russia? Don&rsquo;t Tell ExxonMobil</a> (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)&nbsp;</p>
2016-12-13T12:45:06-08:00859900http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/human-rights-group-says-us-may-be-complicit-in-yemen-atrocities-161211?news=859900U.S. and the WorldHuman Rights Group Says U.S. May be Complicit in Yemen “Atrocities”<p>
By Maggie Michael, Associated Press</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
CAIRO (AP) &mdash; <a href="https://www.hrw.org/">Human Rights Watch</a> on Thursday called for an arms embargo on <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3510">Saudi Arabia</a> over the war in <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3528">Yemen</a>, and said the United States might be complicit in &quot;atrocities&quot; by supplying bombs.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The New York-based group said more than 160 people were killed in one month, mostly by U.S. bombs sold to the Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen&#39;s Houthi rebels. It said the U.S. arms were supplied after earlier violations had been publicized, and were used in airstrikes in September and October.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;The Obama administration is running out of time to completely suspend U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia or be forever linked to Yemen wartime atrocities,&quot; Human Rights Watch researcher Priyanka Motaparthy said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
A Saudi-led coalition supported by the United States launched an air campaign on behalf of Yemen&#39;s internationally recognized government in March 2015. The year before, the Houthis had seized much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
More than 4,000 civilians have been killed in the conflict, and some 3 million have been displaced. The fighting, along with an air and sea blockade by the coalition, has pushed the Arab world&#39;s poorest country to the brink of famine.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Rights groups have investigated dozens of airstrikes that targeted weddings, busy markets, hospitals, and schools. They have accused the coalition of committing war crimes and called for an international investigation.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The Human Rights Watch <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/08/yemen-us-made-bombs-used-unlawful-airstrikes">report</a> released Thursday included findings from an investigation into an air raid in Arhab, a town north of Sanaa, on Sept. 10 that killed 31 civilians, including several first responders, and wounded more than 40.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
HRW said fragments of the weapons used in the attack show they were produced in the U.S. in October 2015, after several rights groups had already reported alleged violations.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Ten days later, warplanes struck a three-story house near a funeral, killing more than 28 civilians and wounding 32 in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, the group said.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;Governments selling weapons to Saudi Arabia cannot with any credibility rely on either coalition or Yemeni-led investigations to determine whether these weapons are being used against civilians,&quot; Motaparthy said. &quot;The U.S., U.K., and others selling weapons to Saudi Arabia should suspend these sales until unlawful attacks are curtailed and properly investigated.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/08/yemen-us-made-bombs-used-unlawful-airstrikes">Yemen: US-Made Bombs Used in Unlawful Airstrikes</a> (Human Rights Watch)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/us-backed-saudi-led-coalition-airstrike-turns-yemeni-funeral-into-lake-of-blood-161010?news=859589">U.S.-Backed Saudi-Led Coalition Airstrike Turns Yemeni Funeral into &ldquo;Lake of Blood&rdquo;</a> (by Ahmed Al-Haj, Associated Press)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/while-us-drags-feet-on-curtailment-of-cluster-bombs-their-use-goes-unabated-in-yemen-and-syria-160902?news=859417">While U.S. Drags Feet on Curtailment of Cluster Bombs, Their Use Goes Unabated in Yemen and Syria</a> (by Sewell Chan, New York Times)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/us-could-be-found-complicit-in-war-crimes-over-role-in-saudi-atrocities-in-yemen-say-rights-groups-160704?news=859100">U.S. Could be Found Complicit in War Crimes over Role in Saudi Atrocities in Yemen, Say Rights Groups</a> (by Dave Bryan, Associated Press)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/us-cluster-bombs-used-by-saudis-in-yemen-may-violate-us-law-160216?news=858305">U.S. Cluster Bombs Used by Saudis in Yemen May Violate U.S. Law</a> (by Rick Gladstone, New York Times)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/us-concern-over-yemen-crisis-belies-its-military-support-of-saudi-coalition-bombing-151012?news=857617">U.S. &ldquo;Concern&rdquo; Over Yemen Crisis Belies Its Military Support of Saudi Coalition Bombing</a> (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)</p>
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<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/in-an-overlooked-war-saudis-use-us-made-weapons-to-kill-civilians-in-yemen-150915?news=857427">In an Overlooked War, Saudis Use U.S.-Made Weapons to Kill Civilians in Yemen</a> (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)</p>
2016-12-11T14:20:06-08:00859897http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/tiny-snail-upends-trumps-planned-wall-to-protect-his-irish-golf-course-from-rising-seas-161211?news=859897U.S. and the WorldTiny Snail Upends Trump’s Planned Wall to Protect His Irish Golf Course from Rising Seas<p>
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By Danny Hakim and Sinead O&rsquo;shea, New York Times</p>
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Of all President-elect Donald Trump&rsquo;s rivals over the past year, the tiny narrow-mouthed whorl snail must be the smallest. Sometimes, though, less is more.</p>
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Trump&rsquo;s real estate organization had planned to build a long sea wall off the Irish coast to protect its golf course in County Clare. But the wall faced opposition from environmental groups who said they feared that it would threaten the 2-millimeter-long whorl snail, or <em>vertigo angustior</em>, which lives in the area, as well as coastal dunes. Both are protected by European Union rules.</p>
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Now it appears that the snail has prevailed.</p>
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Trump&rsquo;s representatives said at a meeting at the club this week that they would replace the planned sea wall with two much smaller barriers.</p>
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&ldquo;The simple reason for these changes is time,&rdquo; Joe Russell, general manager at the resort, said in an interview. &ldquo;The original proposal was going to take too long to push through. I don&rsquo;t have that time. I have the Atlantic Ocean coming at me.&rdquo;</p>
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Russell said Eric Trump, one of Trump&rsquo;s sons, had overseen the process on behalf of the Trump family.</p>
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&ldquo;This had nothing to do with the Trump election,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The Atlantic Ocean doesn&rsquo;t have any idea that an election is going on.&rdquo;</p>
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The sea wall plan had attracted attention because the <a href="http://www.trump.com/">Trump Organization</a>&rsquo;s representatives had used the threat of rising seawater from climate change as a rationale for building it, even though Trump has referred to climate change as a hoax. Trump&rsquo;s golf resort, which he bought in 2014, is near the village of Doonbeg, in County Clare, on Ireland&rsquo;s west coast.</p>
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The original proposal was for a sea wall about 1.7 miles long. A new proposal unveiled at the meeting includes sheet-metal piling and rock armor stretching for roughly 700 yards in one spot, and for about 200 yards at another end of the dunes. Two of the club&rsquo;s holes will also be moved inland.</p>
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The new plan has yet to be officially submitted to the local government.</p>
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In a statement, Tony Lowes, director of <a href="http://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/">Friends of the Irish Environment</a>, said &ldquo;the sense of relief is enormous,&rdquo; adding that &ldquo;the threat of Trump&rsquo;s Irish wall has hung over Doonbeg like a dark cloud for more than two years.&rdquo;</p>
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But he said his group would need to review the Trump Organization&rsquo;s proposal after it was officially introduced before making a fuller comment.</p>
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Any new plan will be considered by County Clare authorities and could then be appealed to a national planning review board next year. An appeal would lead to an unusual episode in Ireland&rsquo;s relations with a sitting U.S. president and could involve a public hearing.</p>
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The Irish wall is not to be confused with the walls that Trump is building to thwart neighbors at one of his two golf courses in Scotland, where relations with locals and political leaders have been tense. Such projects are among numerous potential global conflicts of interest for the incoming president. While he has said he is turning over management of his businesses to his children, it is not clear that he will undertake the kind of divestment that would alleviate conflict concerns.</p>
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An attendee at the meeting this week said the Trump Organization had been eager to avoid further delays.</p>
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&ldquo;They wanted something built in time to protect the golf course,&rdquo; said Fergal Smith, a <a href="http://www.gp.org/">Green Party</a> activist who works with a group called Save the Waves. &ldquo;The original wall was not going to get through the planning process or was going to take a long time because there had been such a strong objection. So they had to rethink it and find a quicker solution.&rdquo;</p>
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Smith said he wanted to see the scientific rationale for the new plan and to make sure it would not create more erosion.</p>
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&ldquo;The positive note is that it&rsquo;s great they&rsquo;ve looked at people&rsquo;s concerns and come back with a compromise solution rather than just going ahead with what they wanted,&rdquo; he added.</p>
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While environmentalists have chafed at the planned sea wall, many local residents have been supportive of Trump&rsquo;s presence in the area.</p>
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&ldquo;We have no problem with Donald Trump in Doonbeg,&rdquo; Tommy Tubridy, owner of <a href="http://www.tubridys.ie/">Tubridy&rsquo;s Bar and Restaurant</a>, said in an interview last month. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s great that the president of the USA owns land in Doonbeg.&rdquo;</p>
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<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/unusual-news/climate-change-denier-trump-cites-global-warming-as-reason-to-build-wall-to-protect-his-luxury-golf-course-160530?news=858895">Climate Change Denier Trump Cites Global Warming as Reason to Build Wall to Protect His Luxury Golf Course</a> (by Michael Biesecker, Associated Press)</p>
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<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/global-warming-sends-earths-sea-levels-rising-faster-than-any-time-in-past-2800-years-160225?news=858365">Global Warming Sends Earth&rsquo;s Sea Levels Rising Faster than Any Time in Past 2,800 Years</a> (by Seth Borenstein, Associated Press)</p>
2016-12-11T14:10:06-08:00859883http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/us-tech-giants-team-to-fight-online-terrorist-propaganda-while-pressed-by-european-officials-to-curb-hate-speech-161208?news=859883U.S. and the WorldU.S. Tech Giants Team to Fight Online Terrorist Propaganda While Pressed by European Officials to Curb Hate Speech<p>
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By Mark Scott, New York Times</p>
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European officials pushed on Tuesday for American technology giants to do more to tackle online hate speech across the region, adding to the chorus of policymakers worldwide demanding greater action from the likes of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/">Google</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>.</p>
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The rebuke came a day after many of those companies announced that they were joining forces to fight the spread of terrorist content on the internet, agreeing to share technology and information to prevent propaganda and other dangerous materials from being disseminated on their services.</p>
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Amid growing security tensions in much of the Western world, governments, intelligence agencies and advocacy groups want Google, <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx">Microsoft</a> and other technology companies to take further steps to curb hate speech on digital platforms, as well as to clamp down on how terrorists circulate information online.</p>
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But freedom of expression campaigners have warned that such demands may limit people&rsquo;s ability to communicate across the internet, and they have cautioned that the line between hate speech and legitimate political discussion can be blurry.</p>
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In a report published on Tuesday, however, the European authorities signaled that only 40 percent of material flagged as possible hate speech online (albeit in a relatively small sample of 600 posts, videos and other online material) had been reviewed by the Silicon Valley companies within 24 hours. Of those 600 postings, just over a quarter was eventually taken down, the report said.</p>
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&ldquo;While I.T. companies are moving in the right direction, the first results show that the I.T. companies will need to do more to make it a success,&rdquo; Vera Jourova, the European commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality, said in a statement. &ldquo;It is our duty to protect people in Europe from incitement to hatred and violence online.&rdquo;</p>
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Press officers for Google and Microsoft declined to comment. Representatives for Facebook and Twitter were not immediately available to comment.</p>
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In a recent interview, Richard Allen, Facebook&rsquo;s head of public policy in Europe, said that the social network was committed to tackling hate speech online, but that there was a fine line between what was legitimate under freedom of speech laws and what was required to protect people online.</p>
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&ldquo;Our policies provide protection from hate speech,&rdquo; Allen said last month. &ldquo;We shouldn&rsquo;t apply media regulation to the speech of ordinary citizens.&rdquo;</p>
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The report on Tuesday is part of European efforts to coax American technology companies to take more responsibility for what is published through their services. In May, companies including Google, Facebook and Twitter signed a voluntary code of conduct, agreeing to do more to tackle the rise of online hate speech across the 28-member European Union.</p>
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Some lawmakers, though, are not satisfied.</p>
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In <a href="http://www.allgov.com/nations?nationID=3493">Germany</a>, where Facebook, in particular, has come under scrutiny, a government-backed task force is to report early next year on whether the social network, among other companies, has met national targets for responding to &mdash; and potentially eliminating &mdash; hate speech. Officials want companies to remove at least 70 percent of online hate speech within 24 hours of it being reported.</p>
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Heiko Maas, the German justice minister, has said that Facebook could even be held criminally liable for illegal hate speech posts, and he has called for legislation if the company does not meet its legal commitments.</p>
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&ldquo;Facebook has a certain responsibility to uphold the laws,&rdquo; Maas said.</p>
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The social network denies any wrongdoing.</p>
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<em>To Learn More:</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/twitter-suspends-alt-right-user-accounts-in-crackdown-on-hate-speech-161119?news=859789">Twitter Suspends &ldquo;Alt-Right&rdquo; User Accounts in Crackdown on Hate Speech</a> (by Bree Fowler, AP)</p>
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<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/twitter-still-trumps-favorite-tool-for-fear-mongering-and-character-assassination-160228?news=858385">Twitter Still Trump&rsquo;s Favorite Tool for Fear Mongering and Character Assassination</a> (by Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman, New York Times)</p>
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&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/twitter-pulls-plug-on-125000-extremists-accounts-160207?news=858240">Twitter Pulls Plug on 125,000 Extremists&rsquo; Accounts</a> (by Mike Isaac, New York Times)</p>
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<a href="http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/tech-firms-grapple-with-protecting-free-speech-versus-aiding-feds-against-isis-160109?news=858092">Tech Firms Grapple with Protecting Free Speech versus Aiding Feds against ISIS</a> (by Brandon Bailey and Julie Pace, Associated Press)</p>
2016-12-08T12:50:06-08:00